


There's a Fox in Fox Tower!

by demesh



Series: The Rob Chronicles [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Slice of Life, Swearing, i don't know how to tag, i guess, it's exciting, the foxes vs. a fox, there might be some fluff at some point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24426553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demesh/pseuds/demesh
Summary: The Foxes have always prided themselves on exactly that -- being Foxes. But what happens when a different kind of fox invades their midst?(It finds a home. That's what happens.)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: The Rob Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080380
Comments: 39
Kudos: 198





	1. Kevin

Kevin has been having a good day, which was always a sign something was going to go wrong.

He was walking into his dorm at Fox Tower, reconstructing today’s practice in his head. The team was getting better; the new foxes were beginning to listen to Neil and him, and were now actually putting effort into improving, instead of antagonising each other and everyone else.

He passed by the beds on his way to the kitchen, humming a melody. And then something registered and he paused, lifted his head and retracted his steps.

Somebody had claimed his bed.

Some _thing_.

Kevin gaped at the fox napping on top of his sheets, all thoughts of exy flying out of his head for what might be the sixth time in his life.

The fox was unaware of him. It was asleep, if its shut eyes were of any indication; it was so small, and orange, and looked like the foxes of picture books. It didn’t even look out of place here, with all the white and orange posters he and Neil had hanged on the walls, and their jerseys on the floor.

And despite what common sense would’ve alluded to, Kevin didn’t like the fox being there.

He must’ve been standing in the middle of the room for a few minutes, gaping, because next thing he knew the door opened and Neil was coming in.

“Kevin, you here? I was thinking maybe we could go over today’s practice and strategise —“ Neil’s voice trailed off as he came to a stop next to him, staring at Kevin’s bed and the monstrosity lying atop it. “There’s a fox on you’re bed.”

“Thanks, I didn’t notice,” Kevin replied.

“Is it yours?”

Kevin glared at Neil. “Where would I have gotten a fox?”

“At an animal shelter?” Neil tilted his head.

Sometimes Kevin forgot that Neil wasn’t aware of the logistics of… everything, basically, having been on the run for years and all. “You can’t just adopt foxes.”

Neil frowned. “Then how did it get here?”

That was, in fact, a good question. The window was closed; the door had been locked. For all they knew, it’d just materialised here and claimed Kevin’s bed as its own. The little motherfucker.

“We need to— to— get it the hell out here,” Kevin said. His pulse wasn’t keeping up with him. He didn’t like animals — and foxes were carnivores, too, weren’t they? Oh, God, it might try to bite him. Or _eat_ him. Oh, good God, this might just become the worst day of his life! Could this really be it? After everything he’s been through, a hungry fox will be his demise? No, there must be a way out of this. Some reasonable solution.

“Neil, we need to burn Fox Tower down.”

Neil rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and stepped toward the bed, crouching to inspect the fox. Kevin was starting to think he wasn’t grasping the severity of the situation. Neil, of all people, must be able to recognise the face of death when he saw it. Right?

“Here, foxy foxy,” Neil crooned at it. The fox opened its eyes lazily to look at Neil, and a bright smile washed over his face.

“Neil!” Kevin hissed at him. “Get away from it! It’ll bite you.” And pick your skin off your bones.

“Relax,” Neil said, gingerly reaching out to touch it. The fox watched his hand’s movement until it rested on top of its head. “See? It’s friendly.”

“It might have _rabies_ ,” Kevin said. “It — it —“

“Fine, _alright_ ,” Neil sighed exasperatedly, straightening. “I’ll usher it outside.”

Kevin stared at him, making sure to keep the fox in his peripheral vision. “Do you reckon a fox is going to listen to the voice of reason? Or to your voice? Or to any voice at all?”

“I’ll just show him the way out. Hold on.”

Neil left the room, and Kevin was left to stare at the fox, which was now staring right back at him. For some reason it looked as if the fox knew exactly what it was doing; it rested its head and warmed its filthy paws against Kevin’s sheets, on which Kevin had been planning to sleep. _His_ bed, _his_ sheets — not only did the fox claim those while Kevin wasn’t around, no — no, it was planning on claiming his _life_ , and, with it, all of his hopes and dreams, and his exy career.

“Fucker,” Kevin hissed under his breath. 

Neil came back a moment later with a broom in his hand, and Kevin frowned.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Neil shrugged. “Usher it outside?”

“It’s gonna _bite_ you,” Kevin protested. “Or the broom. Or _me_!”

“Kevin, quit being a drama queen,” Neil said, approaching the fox, holding the broom like a sword. The fox’s eyes were alert, its eyes fixating on the broom.

“Kevin, open the door,” Neil said.

Kevin hurried to open the door, and then proceeded to stand as far away from it as possible. He watched Neil with weary eyes, catching the glimpse of danger passing through the fox’s eyes right before Neil tugged at the blanket.

The fox sprang into action, jumping at Neil, who let out a yelp and started swinging his broom in an attempt to fend off the fox. Kevin let out a squeal of his own.

“Kevin!” Neil yelled, stumbling around the room. “Don’t just _stand_ there! Get it off me!”

“I— But— I—“

“KEVIN!”

“ALRIGHT!” Kevin sprang into the action, prying the fox off of Neil — or, at least, trying to. The fox hissed and clang harder onto Neil’s shirt, its small head bumping into Kevin’s ribs. Kevin stumbled back, and Neil dropped his broom in favour of trying to grasp the little creature, but it didn’t give in.

“Grab the broom!” Neil yelled.

Kevin picked up the broom and held it like he would an exy racquet, getting in position to strike — but found himself unable to act further. He wanted to attack — demolish the little devil! — but he could do nothing but watch as the fox dug its claws into Neil’s chest, drawing blood.

“KEVIN! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”

“I don’t want to hit you!” Kevin’s voice pitched.

“FUCKING DO SOMETHING!

“I don’t want to hit the fox either!”

“Goddammit — KEVIN!”

Kevin dropped the broom and grabbed the fox, pulling it away from Neil. The fox wriggled free from his hold and flopped onto the floor, springing for the door.

“It’s escaping!” Kevin exclaimed.

“Get it!” Neil yelled, as they both sprang for it. Kevin reached the door first and slammed it shut before the fox could pass through — and, as fate, or misfortune, or the blessing of the gods would have it — the fox ran right into it, knocking itself out.

Neil and Kevin both dropped to the floor, chests heaving in synch.

“A motherfucking fox,” Kevin panted, “got into Fox Tower.”

They were both quiet for a few moments.

But then Neil’s eyes met his, and they both burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No foxes were harmed in the making of this fic.
> 
> I literally wrote this at 3 am instead of sleeping because the idea wouldn't stop nagging at me. It's a lot of fun to write and I hope you'll like it as much as I do - and if you do, please feel free to tell me in the comments!
> 
> Next time: Andrew finds out about the fox.


	2. Andrew

Andrew entered his dorm at Fox Tower to see Neil bleeding on the floor.

_Again._

Before Andrew could rush to Neil’s side to check how bad the damage was, Neil sat up, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Andrew, I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” Andrew grated out.

“I am! It’s just a scratch. Doesn’t even hurt.”

“He might catch rabies,” supplied Kevin, who sat up on the floor as well. Andrew had noticed him lying next to Neil when he entered the room — he’d simply decided to ignore him.

Unless…

“Day, what did you do.”

Kevin’s shoulders tensed up, raising his hands to plead innocence. “It was the fox.”

One of the freshman? Andrew filed through the baby foxes in his head, thinking which one of them he was going to have to kill today. Was it Jack? Jack always had something against Neil —

“Andrew,” Neil snapped his fingers. “Are you hearing me? You can’t kill it. It didn’t even scratch me that bad.”

Andrew blinked. Scratched him? Then again, Kevin did mention rabies. Unless Jack was even more messed up than everyone thought, he was starting to think this was about something else.

“Explain,” he said.

“A fox got into Fox Tower,” Neil said.

“A fox,” Andrew repeated.

Neil pointed at the door behind him. Andrew turned to see the body of small fox, passed out on the floor by the door. He’d missed it when he walked in, eyes all on Neil. Who was, by the way, _still_ bleeding —

“It just materialised on my bed,” Kevin said. “We tried to usher it outside, you know, like civil people, and it straight out _attacked_ us.”

To Neil, Andrew said, “you need to get it checked out.”

“Andrew, I’m _fine_.”

Andrew looked at Neil blankly, and Neil rolled his eyes, leaning his elbow against the floor.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll get Abby to look at it.”

“Great. We’re going,” Andrew said. “Kevin, get rid of the fox.”

“No, wait,” Neil protested, climbing to his feet. “We can’t just throw it out to the street.”

“We can’t keep it,” Kevin objected. “It’s a wild fox. It could have rabies, or a dozen different diseases. Or it could eat us in our sleep.”

“It’s a _fox_ ,” Neil said. “Not a tiger. How different from a cat is it? Or a dog. It’s like a mix of them.”

Kevin facepalmed, hard.

And then they both looked to Andrew, as if his word was the dealbreaker. Neil clearly wanted it to stay, for whatever goddamned reason, even though it’d slashed his chest open. Kevin, on the other hand, was clearly terrified of it.

It wasn’t much of a decision, really.

“Whatever,” Andrew said. Which meant, _fine, we can keep it_.

Neil’s face broke into that dazzling smile of his, and Kevin’s posture slipped until he was lying on his back, arm over his eyes and the sigh of the defeated escaping his mouth.

Andrew left the room without saying anything else, Neil on his heels.

***

When Abby saw them on her threshold, red spotting Neil’s white shirt, her cheery expression sobered.

“What happened?” she asked as she let them in.

“He tried to pet a cat,” Andrew said before Neil could open his mouth. Neil shot him a glance, before catching on. Pets weren’t allowed in the dorms.

“It wasn’t as nice as I thought,” Neil said.

Abby sighed, going to fetch the first aid kit. “You guys are going to be the end of me.”

After cleaning the scratches — they weren’t bad enough to warrant stitches — Abby gave Neil a tetanus shot, just in case. Which was good riddance, actually. Andrew didn’t know when was the last time Neil had gotten any kind of shot. Never, probably.

Abby told Neil it was better to not bandage the scratches, and let them air out as much as possible. Which Neil, being Neil, probably won’t do.

When they got back to Fox Tower, Neil left to the girls’ dorm. He said something about Allison wanting to fix his hair, which had gotten too long again. Andrew did his best to dismiss the thought of Neil with a new haircut, and entered his dorm.

Kevin was nowhere to be seen. At first, Andrew thought he took the fox with him, as he saw it nowhere — but soon enough he found it camped under Kevin’s bed, munching on one of Kevin’s exy shoes. The mess around the bed indicated either a fight or a breakdown, or, Andrew supposed, both. Kevin must’ve been pulling his hair out with his tantrum before giving up and fleeing the scene.

Andrew stalked to the kitchen, pulled an ice cream can out of the freezer, fished a spoon out of the drawer and walked back to the fox. He sat down on the floor, crosslegged, and started methodically going through the ice cream, not paying much mind to the little creature. The fox had stopped chewing and, instead, turned to stare intently at Andrew.

It was a couple of minutes before the fox crawled out from under Kevin’s bed and bumped into Andrew’s knee.

Andrew froze with the spoon in the air, gaze dropping to the fox. It bumped its head against Andrew’s knee again, nose squishing against his black skinny jeans. When Andrew didn’t react, still frozen, the fox lifted its sad little eyes to him.

“What do you want,” Andrew said flatly.

The fox bumped its head against his knee again, and lifted its paws in the direction of his ice cream.

Andrew looked at it blankly, moving the can slightly away from its reach. The fox bumped against him again, and its purr vibrated through Andrew’s kneecap into his bones.

It kind of reminded him of Neil, in an odd way. Crashing into his life and nibbling affection into his cold, dead heart, like it was born to do it.

Andrew breathed out, held still for a moment, and lowered the ice cream can to the fox’s eye-level. The fox, in turn, left his knee alone and approached the can, cautious, even though this was what it was asking for. It sniffed the ice cream, and then shoved its mouth into the can. The can shook in Andrew’s hand as it started eating his ice cream. It was vanilla and strawberries, which was good, since Andrew thought chocolate might kill it.

“You don’t have rabies, do you?” Andrew asked it. The fox looked up at him, before going back to eating the ice cream.

He sat there on the floor, motionless and watching, until the fox had finished everything that was left in the can. It hit its paw against the can, and Andrew let it clatter to the floor. The fox looked after it as it rolled under Kevin’s bed, then turned its sad little eyes to Andrew.

“I’m not giving you more,” Andrew said.

The fox’s eyes seemed to have grown even sadder.

“We don’t have any left,” Andrew found himself explaining. What was he doing? “You ate it all.”

The fox laid down and curled up on itself, head resting on the floor by Andrew’s knee. Andrew looked at it as it closed its eyes and slowly slipped into sleep, in much the same way Neil did. Slowly, then all at once.

Looks like he was going to be taking another stray in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks a lot for reading:)
> 
> Next time: Nicky is faced with the secret.


	3. Nicky

It was one of the few Friday nights when the Monsters didn’t go out to Eden’s. Kevin, Neil and even Andrew have all refused to leave the dorms, not supplementing an explanation. Nicky was a little disappointed, but it gave him time to Skype with Erik, and after that talk, he spent the evening in his dorm’s lounge, beating Aaron at some zombie video game.

It was after midnight when he heard noises from the hallway.

Aaron had already gone to sleep about an hour ago, and Matt was spending the night at Dan’s, so Nicky was basically alone. At first, he’d thought the noise was just the wind — but as he turned to go to sleep, he’d heard another faint bang and a curse, and his curiosity got the better of him.

He padded across the dorm in his socks and opened the door, peeking outside.

Neil was standing a few feet away, his back to him, holding a bag. He was murmuring something, but it was so quiet that Nicky couldn’t catch it.

Intrigued, Nicky walked into the hallway and closed the door behind him, padding quietly toward Neil.

“Whatcha got there, Neil?” Nicky said.

Neil jumped in his place, almost dropping the bag, and turned around sharply — keeping the bag behind him.

“Jesus, Nicky,” he said. “Make a noise next time.”

Nicky’s eyes narrowed. It was unusual, to say the least, for Neil to not be aware of people’s approach, let alone Nicky’s. Sure, he’d gotten more lenient in the last few months, less jumpy and not as paranoid as he used to be, but Nicky still noticed him scouring rooms sometimes, when he thought no one was looking. Nicky blamed it on habit.

“Wait,” Nicky said, “where are you going at one in the morning?”

“I… needed some air,” Neil said, waving him off. “Don’t worry about me. Go back to sleep.”

Nicky’s eyes narrowed even further as suspicion crept into his heart. “Neil,” he said, voice somber. “Is someone threatening you?”

“What? No,” Neil said, too quickly. “Everything’s fine, Nicky, I just need to walk off a nightmare.”

There it was — the magic word.

“Everything’s ‘fine’?” Nicky’s eyebrows rose.

Neil froze, realising Nicky was onto him.

“Fuck, okay, listen,” he said, grabbing Nicky’s sleeve and dragging him after him. Nicky, baffled, followed willingly. “This is a _secret_ , and you can tell no one, okay? Not even Erik. It’s important that you promise me.”

“What?” Nicky whispered, suddenly aware that it was the middle of the night, as they hurried down the stairs. “Neil, what’s going on? Are you in danger?”

“I’m fine,” Neil hissed. “I’m going to show you something. You have to promise to keep it a secret.” He stopped in his tracks, not letting go of Nicky’s sleeve, and turned to look him dead in the eye. His eyes were icy. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

“ _Life and death_?!” Nicky shrieked.

“Keep it down!”

“Okay! Okay, I’ll tell nobody.”

“Nobody,” Neil emphasised, and Nicky nodded frantically.

Neil lead them the rest of the way down out of Fox Tower, keeping a protective arm over his bag. Once they were out and a safe distance away, Neil glanced around, before opening the bag.

A small, orange fox’s head peeked out at Nicky.

Nicky squealed. “Holy shit! Neil!”

Neil gestured for him to lower his voice.

“It’s a fucking fox!” Nicky said, lowering his voice. “An actual, living fox — how the hell did you _get_ it?”

“It broke into our dorm,” Neil said. “Took over Kevin’s bed. Basically kicked him out.”

Nicky fell silent for a moment. “It _broke_ into your dorm?”

Neil shrugged. “We don’t know how it got in, but Andrew said we could keep it.”

“Oh my — so that’s why you didn’t want to go to Eden’s tonight!”

Neil looked sheepish. “It’s not like we could take him with us.”

“Neil, this is crazy,” Nicky said. “You can’t just — keep a _fox_ in your room. It could be carrying diseases.”

Neil sighed exasperatedly. “You sound like Kevin. I mean, it scratched me and _I’m_ okay, so it’s probably fine.”

“It scratched you?!”

“I’m fine!” Neil said. “But we have to keep it a secret, Nicky. Andrew says that the moment anyone catches wind of it, they’ll take it away, maybe even put it down.”

_Oh._ So that’s why it was a matter of life and death.

“I promise you that I’ll tell no-one,” Nicky said. When Neil lifted skeptical eyes to him, he put his hand over his heart. “Really. My lips are zipped.”

Neil seemed to believe him, because his features relaxed. “Do you want to pet him?”

Nicky looked down to the fox, which was staring up at him, motionless. “Is it safe?”

“I pet him all the time,” Neil said.

Well, if it weren’t safe and Neil was going down, Nicky might as well just go down with him. He reached for the fox’s head gingerly, halting when the fox pulled away.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Neil asked it, voice low. “Nicky’s not going to hurt you. He’s a friend.”

The fox looked up at Neil, and then back at Nicky.

“Go on,” Neil said. Nicky complied, smiling when the fox didn’t pull away this time. It let him put a hand on its head, and, feeling brave, Nicky started rubbing it around, petting it.

The fox never took its eyes off of Nicky, but a low purr came out of its throat at the pets. Nicky was always good with animals, knowing where to pet so they’ll fall in love with him, and his methods seemed to be just as successful this time around.

“Well, I’m going back inside,” Neil said, hiding the fox back in the bag. “I think he got enough fresh air for today.”

“Hold on,” Nicky said. “What’s its name?”

Neil halted, frowning. “I haven’t really thought about that. In the dorm we just call him Fox.”

“An awesome little devil like this one should have a name,” Nicky said. “And we can’t just call him Fox. It would be a dead giveaway. Also,” he added, “confusing.” They were all Foxes, after all.

“It has to be conspicuous, then,” Neil complied. “A name that will make it seem like we’re talking about our definitely human mutual friend.”

They stood in the dark for a few moments, thinking.

“What about Rob?” Nicky suggested.

“Like Robert?”

“Yeah! You know,” Nicky nudged him. “‘Cause he _robbed_ our hearts. And Kevin’s bed.”

After a pause, Neil smiled. “I like it.”

Nicky felt giddy.

***

By Sunday morning, all of the Foxes knew of Rob the Fox.

Nicky didn’t _mean_ to tell anybody, really. It just so happened that he talked in his sleep, and Aaron and Matt pried him for answers of the mumbles come morning. Aaron didn’t seem to care, but Matt told Nicky he just had to tell Dan, because, come on, she’s his girlfriend — and Matt said he trusted her. Dan’s definition of a secret was probably a little different than his, because by the end of the hour both Allison and Renee found out.

It’s not too bad, Nicky thought. It’s the Foxes. They’re family. They wouldn’t tell anyone.

It all blew up in his face when Andrew walked into Nicky’s dorm, knife in hand, and pushed him against the wall.

“Andrew!” Nicky exclaimed. “Andrew, calm down! What are you doing?!”

“If you tell _one_ more person,” Andrew hissed, and Nicky felt the tip of a blade at his side.

“It wasn’t on purpose! I swear!”

“Neil is an inch from a nervous breakdown because _you_ ,” Andrew said, pressing the blade deeper, “decided to go around and tell the whole world about _Rob_.” Andrew spat out the name like is was poisonous. Nicky was pretty sure his shirt was a goner by now.

“I only told Aaron and Matt!” Nicky squealed. “And it was just because they heard me talk in my sleep!”

Andrew’s blank stare cut through Nicky’s soul. “If I find out of anyone else outside of the team,” he said slowly, “knowing about this, you won’t see the light of day again.”

“Okay! I won’t,” Nicky said. Dammit, he loved that shirt. “Andrew, I won’t. Don’t stab me.”

Andrew held his gaze for a moment, before letting go of Nicky and taking a step back. The knife was gone before Nicky could see where it went.

When Andrew turned around and left, Nicky followed him, wanting to make sure Neil was alright.

The door to Andrew’s dorm was open, and when Nicky walked inside, he found all of the Foxes there — including Rob. Neil was sitting on the floor by Kevin’s bed, Rob on his lap. Matt, along with the girls, were huddled around the two, looks of both awe and concern decorating their faces. Even Aaron was there, looking curiously at the creature. Kevin was sitting by the desk, nursing a glass of whisky with his cheeks flushed, despite it being only noon.

When Andrew and Nicky walked in, Neil’s eyes flashed to them, followed by a look of relief.

“Oh, good, you’re alive,” Aaron noted from the other end of the room. “And late.”

“Late for what?” Nicky said.

“We’re having a council,” said Allison, turning to shut the door, then turning back and gesturing with her chin at Neil’s general direction. “About that.”

“Thanks to _someone_ ,” Kevin slurred, “secret’s out. We need to plan what we’re gonna do from now on.”

“We could have shifts keeping an eye on it,” Renee suggested.

“I think it would expose it,” objected Dan. “It’s better to assign it to just one or two people. But I don’t think any of us can just take it to class with us.”

“Why not keep it here?” said Allison.

“He might hurt himself,” Neil said.

They all fell silent, thinking.

“Neil could just carry it around in his bag,” Nicky said, startled by the amount of eyes that simultaneously turned to him. Neil tilted his head. “I mean,” Nicky continued, gesturing at nothing in particular, “like you did on Friday.”

“That might actually be a good idea,” said Dan. “It already trusts Neil.”

“You’ll just have to leave an opening for him to breathe,” Aaron said. “And feed it, so it wouldn’t die.”

Neil nodded to the instructions, petting Rob absentmindedly with his eyes trained on Andrew.

“What do you say?” Neil asked.

Andrew looked at the fox. “As long as you don’t kill it.”

Nicky was taken aback by that, as, it seemed, were the rest of the foxes — except for Neil and Kevin. Nicky didn’t think Andrew would care at all, since it was so hard to get him to care about things. And he knew Rob for what, five days? A week?

Andrew ignored the awed looks and stalked to the kitchen, disappearing into it without coming back out. Nicky heard the vague thump of the freezer being shut.

“So, Neil,” Matt grinned. “Looks like you’re Rob’s new guardian.”

Neil looked down at the fox on his lap, a fond expression on his face.

Looking around at the display of fixed gazes, Nicky calmed down a little, thinking that it wouldn’t be too bad. These were the Foxes — they would never betray one of their own, even if it wasn’t as human as the rest of them. This was going to be okay.

Rob will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading^^
> 
> Next time: Rob stumbles into the life of crime (and drags Allison along with it).


	4. Allison

Allison approached the math department’s building, heels clicking against the pavement, searching for Neil to snatch him up for brunch. But she saw no Neil around.

What she did see, though, was something orange slipping into the bushes.

Suspicious.

Allison approached the bush and made a smoochy noise at it, trying to lure it out. And, sure enough, a moment later Rob’s nose peeked out of the bushes by her shoes, followed by the rest of his head and then his body. Allison crouched carefully, making sure not to crinkle her dress, and picked him up.

“Where’s Neil?” she asked it, looking around. “Did you run away from him?”

Why would it, though? Ever since they ruled Neil as Rob’s official guardian, Neil has unveiled his surprisingly impressive ability to take care of the little thing; taking it everywhere with him, feeding it, taking it out on walks. And Rob adored him — followed him around and listened to him, and even asked for snuggles every now and then. It’s been a while since she saw one without the other.

She looked around again in search of this certain redhead, and blanched.

A campus police officer was approaching her, and suddenly she was staggeringly aware of the small _fox_ cradled in her arms. Her instinct had her fumbling to hide it from sight, but it was too late.

“Miss,” said the officer. “Please get away from the feral fox. It’s dangerous.”

“That’s not a fox,” she blurted.

The officer frowned. “Excuse me?”

“It’s my dog,” Allison said. “It — he’s not feral, ma’am. He’s very domesticated.”

“We have received complaints about a feral fox wandering around the math department and attacking people,” said the officer. “This _dog_ ,” she made air-quotes, “looks a lot like a fox to me.”

“It really isn’t,” Allison said, shaking her head.

“Miss, please,” said the officer, taking a step forward.

“Oh my God, is that a fox right there?!” Allison exclaimed, pointing behind the officer. The moment the officer looked behind her shoulder, Allison bolted.

“Miss!” the officer yelled after her. Allison didn’t look back to see if she was being followed — instead, she clutched Rob to her chest and made a turn, and then another one.

When she was fairly certain she was alone, she slowed down to a walk. She was at an intersection of pavements when someone bumped into her, making her almost drop Rob.

“Watch it!” she called. And then she halted. “Neil.”

“Allison,” Neil said, sounding out of breathe. “Have you seen —“

Allison shoved Rob into his arms. “Your fox almost got arrested. Where on earth have you been?”

Neil fumbled to hold Rob, who almost fell to the ground for the second time in an oddly short amount of time. “He just,” Neil huffed, “bolted on me. I don’t know what’s going on with him today.”

“I just saw a cop,” Allison said, “and _apparently_ Rob is wanted across campus for assault.”

Neil looked at her, puzzled, before a look of understanding washed over his face and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe that asshole called the cops.”

“What asshole?”

“Some idiot tried to take my bag,” Neil said. “Rob got scared. He’s been on edge all day, you know? So he jumped out of the bag and tried to bite the guy.”

“Tried to?” Allison’s eyebrows rose.

“I stopped him, obviously,” Neil said. “But then Rob just took off. I tried to go after him but he just disappeared. That guy probably called the cops.”

“And now Rob’s wanted,” Allison said.

“So it seems.” Neil sighed in defeat, sitting down on the edge of the pavement. “I tried so hard to keep him hidden, Alli.”

“Hey, Neil,” Allison sat down beside him. “Don’t beat yourself up for that. It’s not your fault. Give it a few days, and everyone will forget all about it.”

Neil looked at Allison, opening his mouth to answer, when a strangely familiar voice came back to haunt Allison and they both froze. “Hey!”

“Shit,” Allison said.

“I assume that’s the cop,” Neil said.

“Hey, you two!” the voice called again, closer.

“Yep.” Allison popped the _p_ as they both sprang to their feet. Neil didn’t have enough time to put Rob in his bag before they saw the officer running toward them, and they broke into a run at the opposite direction — Allison in her heels, Neil holding onto Rob as if his life depended on it.

“You idiot,” Allison hissed at Rob. “Going around committing crimes, making me run in heels!”

“It’s not his fault!” Neil called, offended. “Let’s see how _you_ react when someone tries to kidnap you!”

“Let’s see how well _you_ can run in heels!” she retorted.

“I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying it’s not his fault!”

“Your fault, then!”

“You literally _just_ said it wasn’t my fault!”

“Surrender the fox!” yelled the officer behind them. Allison and Neil both glanced back, having momentarily forgotten the reason why they were running at all, to see the officer just a few feet behind them and waving a taser.

“Holy shit, she’s crazy!” Allison yelled.

“Run faster!” Neil yelled back.

They increased their speed and turned the corner, and Neil grabbed Allison’s hand and pulled her behind a dumpster. Allison almost rammed her face into it from her inertia, but, luckily, her athletic instincts saved her beautiful face from the unspeakable tragedy.

She almost said something about it to Neil, but when she turned to him, he raised his finger to his lips.

They remained completely silent as the crazy lady cop ran by them, not even bothering to check behind the dumpster. After a minute or so, Neil raised his head over the dumpster and looked around.

“She’s gone,” he told Allison, lowering his head back down. He looked down at Rob in his lap. “And you need to stop trying to bite people. It will get you nowhere in life, believe me.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Allison told Rob, who looked up at her. Allison could’ve sworn it was scowling. “Hey, I’m not the one running from the cops here.”

“You are though,” Neil said.

“Technicalities,” she waved him off.

“I don’t —“

“Let’s get him back to the dorms,” Allison said, climbing to her feet. She crinkled her nose, suddenly aware of their surrounding. She was probably stinky now, and she refused to look down at her designer dress. “The little bastard needs some time to cool off.”

***

It was three days later, and Allison was fox-sitting Rob in place of Neil, who was having an important math test. She was sitting on a bench under a strawberry tree, rubbing behind Rob’s ear absentmindedly while scrolling through her instagram. She contemplated taking a selfie with the little creature, but arrived at the conclusion it would undermine them both, despite their collective cuteness. Not that she was _cute_ — ferocious, rather, if you asked her. And the little devil purring under her fingertips was just as ferocious as her, under his orange coat of fur and big, fluffy ears.

She was about to take a selfie of just herself when she felt Rob go still under her fingertips, and lowered the screen to look down at him. “What is it?”

“Excuse me, Miss,” said the voice from her nightmares, and Allison looked up to see the crazy lady cop, in all her glory, looking down at her.

The last few nights have been contaminated with dreams starring Rob and this crazy lady cop. In every one of them Allison and Rob were caught, and she was left helpless to watch as he was taken away from her. Just this morning, Allison had sat up in her bed at five a.m. in cold sweat, trying to figure out how she could possibly face Neil and tell him that she’d failed.

Was this another nightmare?

Rob gekkered lowly at the crazy lady cop, ears flattening back. He knew they were trapped just as well as Allison did — they couldn’t run or hide, so their only option left was to stand their ground.

Allison held the crazy lady cop’s gaze, and suddenly, a plan began weaving into shape in her head.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but your fox needs to be taken off campus grounds,” said the officer.

“No,” Allison said, her voice level. “You can’t do that.”

“I’m a cop,” said the cop. “And the fox is a hazard to the students.”

“You can’t take him away,” Allison insisted, standing up. “He’s the exy team’s mascot.”

The crazy lady cop looked taken aback by that, but Allison didn’t let her reply as she herself scooped the still gekkering Rob up in her arms. “You see,” she said, “Rob here is a fox. As you must know, so are we.”

“Is this authorized?” said the officer. “I’ve received no news of this turn of events.”

“The events didn’t turn,” Allison said. “There must’ve been some confusion. Rob’s been granted the title of our mascot a couple of weeks ago, and he was supposed to have his public debut this Friday.”

“This fox had been reported to have attacked people,” said the officer.

“Must’ve been a different fox,” Allison said, petting Rob’s head. “Rob would never do that.”

The crazy lady cop stared at her for a few prolonged moments, eyes narrowing and narrowing. “This can’t be authorized.”

“I assure you that it is,” Allison said. “You can even ask our coach, he’ll tell you the same thing.”

A smirk twirled its way onto the crazy lady cop’s face, and Allison instantly knew she was going to take her up on that. “Call him, then.”

Allison dialed Wymack’s number, silently praying that he’ll go along with this. He picked up on the second ring. “Allison?”

“Wymach, hey,” Allison said, putting him on speaker while making eye contact with the crazy lady cop. “There’s someone here who wants to talk with you.”

“Mr. Wymach?” said the crazy lady cop. “I’m officer Yankie.”

Allison could practically feel Wymach’s scorching gaze landing on her.

“Has Allison done something wrong?”

“Well, you see,” said the officer, “I was just told your exy team has enquired a new mascot.”

Wymach remained silent.

“In the form of a fox,” she continued. “And lately there’s been a fox terrorising campus grounds. We’ve been on the lookout for it and have found it in Miss. Allison’s custody for the second time now. The fox needs to be taken off campus grounds, but she says it’s become your new mascot.”

Wymach took a moment to reply. “She isn’t wrong.”

The crazy lady cop fell silent, eyebrows arching in surprise. “She isn’t?”

“No,” Wymach said, voice firm. “And I ask that you stop harassing Allison. This is a private matter regarding the exy team.”

“But the feral fox —“

“I’m telling you, it’s a different fox!” Allison said.

“We would never make a feral fox our mascot,” Wymach assured the officer over the line. “So you can disregard your concerns.”

“This can’t be authorized,” said the officer.

“I assure you that it is,” said Wymach, pressing on the last vowel. “It will be announced soon.”

The crazy lady cop looked between the phone, Allison and Rob, and eventually sighed. Allison didn’t bother concealing her smug smile, patting Rob’s head for a job well done. Of course, he had done absolutely nothing, but he’d done that spectacularly.

“You heard him,” she told the officer. “You can leave us alone now.”

She received a bitter scowl in response, before the crazy lady cop huffed and stalked off, pushing her hair back in defiance. Allison didn’t pay attention to her as she took Wymach off the speaker and put her phone to her ear.

“Reynolds.”

“I can explain,” she said.

“You better. What on earth was that just now?”

“I couldn’t let her take Rob.”

“Rob?”

“The fox,” she said. “Neil found him in the dorm, and… I mean, it’s a long story, but he got really attached to it.”

Wymach sighed on the other side. “Of course he did.”

“Wymach, you have to make Rob our new mascot,” she pleaded.

“Do I have a choice?” he said. “I’ll pull some strings.”

Allison cheered quietly, and Rob looked up at her from her arms. The bastard probably thought she was crazy, that ungrateful snob. He didn’t even know that she’d just granted him a bright new future, away from shadows and hiding and exchanging hands.

From now on he’ll be able to walk tall, just like her.

“Oh,” she remembered. “His debut is on Friday.”

“Good to know there’s a deadline,” Wymach said.

Allison grinned. “Thank you, Coach.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said gruffly. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

***

Half an hour later she slammed open the door to her dorm, Rob’s head peeking from inside her designer handbag. Dan and Renee looked up at her.

“You’re not going to believe me,” she declared.

Curiosity invaded their faces, and a wicked grin split her face.

She was going to make Rob infamous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rob is indeed one special kind of a criminal.  
> As always thank you all for reading:)
> 
> Next time: Rob's first exy practice.


	5. Dan

Thursday’s morning practice was the practice that changed it all.

Dan had known of Rob’s new position on the team, but when she came to practice and saw Rob lying across the sofa that Andrew, Neil and Kevin have claimed, she stopped in her tracks. She wasn’t sure if she should approach it, smooch at it, or do nothing at all. The Foxes trickling into the room took her out of her indecisive haze and she sat down in her place, stealing glances at Rob every now and then.

Kevin arrived suspiciously late, stopping in his tracks when he saw Rob lying on his spot. Andrew and Neil have already claimed their places, not bothering to move Rob; Dan found the betrayal displayed across Kevin’s face lowkey hilarious, and swallowed her smile when Kevin stalked to another chair, not even bothering to approach Rob or talk sense into his sofa-mates. Andrew’s blank gaze and Neil’s amused one followed him in synchronism, and Kevin’s scowl deepened as he sat down on the chair next to Dan.

“I take it you don’t like Rob much,” she said. Kevin glared at her, sinking a little in his seat.

“It’s like they replaced me,” he grumbled. “It’s horrible. You would think he’d sleep with Neil, or on the floor, or on a sweatshirt or something — no!” He sank even deeper. “He took my bed, and now I have to scoot over to the edge, and that’s if he doesn’t push me off altogether.”

Dan swallowed down another smile, imagining Kevin falling off the bed in the middle of the night. “Sounds harsh.”

“It’s awful,” Kevin said. “And he eats everything. My clothes, my equipment, my magazines…” Kevin’s voice trailed off as he looked over to Rob, face full of contempt, and Wymach entered the room. “Why is Rob even here?”

“Listen up,” said Wymach, and all the Foxes in the room looked to him. “Rob here is our team’s new mascot. You can thank Allison later. For now, he’ll come to practices so he can get used to the team and the game. Tomorrow he debuts.”

Kevin inhaled sharply beside Dan. “This can’t be authorized!”

Dan caught Allison snapping a glare at him from across the room, but Kevin rumbled on, unaware. “Besides, we already have a mascot. What’s Jimmy going to do if we fire him, huh? Poor guy can’t get a job to save his life!” Kevin inhaled. “And Rob might have rabies. Or other potentially deadly diseases! If he bites one of us, and passes on a parasite, the whole team is in danger of _dying_!” Kevin inhaled again. “This— this is an atrocity! It’s unacceptable!”

“Kevin,” Allison said, voice level. “It’s either that, or Rob goes to jail.”

“Let him!”

“If Rob goes to jail, Neil will cry,” she said. “Do you want that?”

“Hey,” Neil called.

“Calm your horses, guys,” Wymach interrupted. “Rob’s our new mascot and it’s not up for debate. We don’t have to get rid of Jimmy. As for diseases,” he looked to Kevin, “Abby will check him up, vaccinate him if needed. He won’t be a threat to my players.”

Kevin glared at Wymach, then got up and stalked into the locker room.

Matt leaned into Dan’s space and pretend-whispered, “I don’t think he likes Rob.”

“Definitely not,” she pretend-whispered back. “Didn’t Neil say Rob attacked Kevin when he first got here? It must really hate him.”

“It sure likes his things, though,” Matt said, and smirked. “How long do you think it’ll take for Rob to take Kevin’s place on the team?”

Dan smiled and looked to Rob, who seemed to have settled in real comfortable in Kevin’s spot. “I don’t know, maybe a day.”

Matt called Allison over before they went to gear up, and ten minutes later every Fox — except, obviously, poor Kevin — had placed money on it. Even Neil joined in. The general consensus was that by tomorrow’s game, their lineup would be much more exciting.

Abby took Rob to give him a check-up, disappearing into another room. When they had all geared up and were ready to go into the court, Abby came back with Rob in her arms.

“Generally, everything’s fine,” she said, turning to look at the Foxes. “Except… I mean, you guys _do_ know that Rob is a girl, right?”

Neil’s and Andrew’s gazes snapped to her, and the whole room fell dead silent for a second.

“Yeah, Abby,” Dan finally said. “Obviously.”

The room erupted into a chorus of _yeah_ , _obviously_ and _of course_ , not before she saw Neil turn around and walk into the court, wide-eyed and dazed, shaking his head as he started to stretch.

***

They weren’t even fifteen minutes into practice when Rob’s scratching and giggling against the plexiglass made the Foxes slow to a halt. Dan glanced at the frantic fox jostling by the sidelines; it seemed to have caught up in the excitement of their movements, and, to be honest, Dan would be lying if she said it hadn’t looked like Rob was desperate to be let in on the action.

And so, after a sharp objection from Kevin and a brief pep-talk from Wymach, Rob was let loose into the court.

At first, he — or rather, _she_ , as Dan had to remind herself — was just running around and jumping, giggling with the sound they’ve grown used to hearing at the dorms. But as the team geared back into action, running around and blocking and passing, Rob was coming closer and closer to them, blending into the motions. It ran after Neil as he sprinted across the court to score on Andrew; jumped around Matt when that shuffled to snatch away the ball; leaped to catch the ball when Andrew slammed it right back at them.

At some point, lady misfortune came down on Kevin once again as Rob took to latching onto him. Rob leaped after the ball as Dan passed it to Kevin, tangling between Kevin’s legs; Kevin stumbled as he caught it, let out a nasty curse and manoeuvred to avoid Rob under him. He let the ball loose on his ninth step toward the goal, and Rob, wild and energetic, made a majestic jump after it.

The moment Rob’s teeth latched around the ball, the Foxes have collectively missed a heartbeat.

Rob rolled onto the ground, ball in her mouth, and wasted no time getting up. She ran back to Kevin and shoved her nuzzle into his calf, before setting the ball down next to his feet. Kevin only looked down at Rob, face painted disbelief.

“Kevin, throw it again!” Dan yelled from half the court away.

“Fuck off!” Kevin yelled back, scooping the ball up regardless. Rob started jumping around him as he swinged his racket and threw the ball again toward the goal.

This time, instead of going after the ball, Rob jumped toward the racket. As the ball ricocheted past a motionless Andrew, Rob’s teeth caught the racket’s net, and, with one swift motion, she pulled it free of Kevin’s grasp.

Kevin’s eyes widened murderously as Rob broke into a ran across the court, racket in her mouth, and he sprang right after her. Dan, along with the rest of the Foxes, stood there and watched Kevin run around after Rob, swinging his arms and yelling profanities at the foxess. Eventually, panting and heaving, Kevin threw his arms up in the air.

“Fuck you!” he yelled at the foxess. Then he turned to glare at the rest of the Foxes. “And fuck you all too!”

With that, Kevin stalked off the court. Rob halted in her tracks, looking after him with the racket hanging between her teeth.

Matt sent Dan a conflicted look. Instead of responding, she approached Rob and crouched in front of the little devil, hand outstretched forward.

“Rob,” she said, voice stern. Rob looked up at her, ears slightly fallen, and she could see the way her whole body heaved up and down at her harsh breathing. “You need to give that back.”

When Rob didn’t stir, Dan gently grabbed the dangling end of the racket. “I know you just wanted to play,” she said, voice hardening, “but you just scared one of our best players off the court. We’d lose without him. Do you want us to lose?”

Rob looked at her for a few beats, and Dan looked right back at her, unflinching from the eye contact. Then, Rob began to slowly unclench her jaw, releasing the racket. Dan grabbed it before it could fall to the ground, avoiding touching the net, and gave Rob a pat on the head with her free hand. Against her better judgment, a smile crept onto her face.

“Someone call Kevin back here,” she called as she rose to her feet, racket firmly in hand.

“He says he won’t come back until Rob’s gone!” Neil called back from the edge of the court, where the rest of the team had huddled together. Dan strode over to them, not missing the pitter-patter of Rob’s paws against the ground as she followed her from behind.

“Tell him I got his racket back,” Dan said when she reached them.

“Dan says you’re no fun!” Neil yelled at the exit. Dan could faintly hear Kevin’s angry response through the plexiglass, and rolled her eyes.

“He really is no fun,” Nicky said. “Rob was just playing with him.”

“He’ll get over it,” Allison said dismissively. She crouched in front of Rob and started scratching her behind the ear, pouting her lips. “Who’s a good girl? Huh? Who’s a good girl?”

“I still can’t believe it’s a girl,” Matt said. “We can’t keep calling her Rob.”

“It could be short for Roberta, instead of the original Robert,” Nicky said.

“I wasn’t aware it was an abbreviation.”

“Well, Rob isn’t really a name, is it?”

“There are plenty of Rob’s in the world,” Matt objected.

“And all of them are actually called Robert,” Nicky said.

“Probably not _all_ of them,” said Allison, glancing up. “There must be some just Rob’s out there.”

“And now there’s also Roberta,” supplied Renee.

“You know,” Matt said, “we could call her Berta, instead of Rob. To make it less confusing.”

Four voices immediately groaned in objection, with the addition of Nicky violently shuddering, and Matt raised his hands in surrender.

Neil crouched down beside Allison, looking at the foxess. Her eyes instantly glued to him. “I think Rob suits her. She’s a compulsive thief.”

“You couldn’t have had a normal fox break into your room, after all,” Aaron said from where he was leaning against the plexiglass. At Neil’s glare, he shrugged.

Dan looked at the foxess, head slightly tilting. “I mean, she _is_ a Fox.”

When the team looked at her in surprise, she let her lips curve into a smile. For better or for worse, Roberta or Rob, this tiny foxess was their mascot now. She was a part of the team. This practice, if anything, showed her just how much of a Fox Rob was; the fire for exy burned in her veins just as fiercely as the fire in her eyes did. So what if she would be a little hard to tame? All Foxes were. That’s what made them Foxes in the first place.

“Okay, break’s over,” she announced. “Let’s go over some drills.”

***

On Friday’s game, Rob watched the team from behind the plexiglass, safely secured beside Wymach. Kevin, for all his profanities and contempt, couldn’t find it in his exy-obsessed heart to stay away from the court for long, and had stepped onto it with the rest of the starting line.

And the Foxes played. Did they play a little more vehemently, fiercer, faster than usual? Dan couldn’t exactly tell. But Rob’s eyes on them had them all buzzing with newfound excitement; they wanted to show off the best of their plays, and they wanted to undeniably win.

And so, they undeniably won.

While Rob didn’t end up taking Kevin’s place on the team — Renee made a small fortune on that — the foxess _had_ taken up her own spot between them. Once the game was over, Rob was let onto the court, sprinting toward her team; they all laughed when she trampled Kevin, biting his racket in excitement and giggling. Dan even caught the ghost of a smile passing across Kevin’s lips.

When they left the court, Rob scooped up and sleeping in Neil’s arms, Dan couldn’t help her wide smile. The stray foxess seemed to have always belonged right here, living and breathing the same air as the rest of them.

Dan knew this feeling that was blossoming deep down inside her. The last time she’d felt it was when a certain redhead runway had shown up here out of nowhere; it was a sense of possessiveness, the incessant need to protect what was rightfully theirs.

And now they all knew that it was final: it might’ve started as a mistake, but Rob was here to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a female fox is not called a foxess, but I grew too attached to the word by the time I realised that, so bear with me haha. Also, sorry if anyone named Berta is reading this.   
> Thanks for reading:)
> 
> Next time: Rob finds Aaron's melodrama inspirational, and so the way of the Minyard is passed down to her.


	6. Aaron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads-up to some violence and a little bit of blood, and a brief allusion to Drake. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy:)

Aaron was officially sick of Rob.

There was a line, and that line has been crossed today.

“That’s it,” Aaron said, throwing his controller down. Using the two hands that he’d freed up, he pushed Rob off of him. The little foxess tumbled into the beanbag between his legs, but quickly jumped back onto him. “No — Get off me! Andrew, a little help?”

“Can’t, busy,” Andrew said, key-smashing his controller, eyes focused on the screen and the still ongoing game. Aaron’s character was completely still on his half of the screen, miraculously still —

“Fuck!” Aaron yelled, pushing Rob off him again to grab his controller. But it was too late. Just when he reached the circle button, his character’s throat was torn out by a zombie. “Fucking — fuck, fuck!”

“And then there were none,” Andrew said when his own character tumbled off a cliff a few seconds later, and both sides of the screen went dark.

“Are you happy now?” Aaron asked Rob. “Is this what you wanted? Huh?”

Andrew put his controller down and collected himself up from the beanbag.

“Where are you going? We’re doing another round,” Aaron said. Andrew, in response, pulled a cigarette pack out of his back pocket, and stalked out of the room.

“Are you at least going to come back?” Aaron called as the door was closed shut. Aaron sighed melodramatically, sinking back into his beanbag. Rob took the gesture as the invitation it wasn’t and jumped right back onto his lap, making to bite at his hair while Aaron pulled away, pushing her mouth away from him. “Bad fox. Stay put.”

Rob bared her teeth at him, making him blanch. And then she bit his hair, and a full-body shudder went through him as he jumped up from the beanbag, Rob releasing her grasp to flop onto it. “And that’s it!” he announced, shuddering again when he felt wet strands of hair falling against his forehead. “Thank you for traumatising me. Goodbye.”

When he left the dorm, he almost walked into Andrew, who was standing almost at the threshold with his back to him. Aaron almost cursed, before he noticed the two guys standing on the other end of the hallway, cackling. Looking back to Andrew’s figure, he saw his twin’s knuckles turn white around his cigarette pack, despite his otherwise careless demeanour.

“Oh, your doppelgänger’s here,” said one of the guys. “Also a psychopath, isn’t he? Though I bet he can’t be as crazy as you. I mean, you’re the one who kept switching families, probably killed them all.”

Aaron moved before he even registered what he was doing, crossing the hallway in a flash and punching the guy square in the jaw. It was so strong that the guy's head went reeling back, ricocheting against the wall, and he spluttered. “What the _fuck_ —“

“I suggest you shut the fuck up,” said Aaron, voice ice cold. “Before I kill you.”

“Dude, they’re both batshit crazy,” called the second guy, pulling the first one after him. The guy who Aaron has just punched barely managed to stand up straight, but he still stumbled after his friend. In less than ten seconds they were both gone from sight.

The blood came back to Andrew’s knuckles, and he shoved the cigarette pack into his back pocket.

“Andrew —“ Aaron started, falling silent as Andrew lifted his eyes to glance at him.

“I didn’t need you to do that.”

Aaron knew that. Andrew didn’t need anyone protecting him, didn’t want anyone to stand up for him. Hell, he didn’t even care when people insulted him — and Aaron, by all reasonable means, wouldn’t have cared either. He never has before, not really.

Maybe it was the joint therapy sessions, or the whole thanksgiving and trial ordeal, the mafia raining down on them just a few months back, or, hell, maybe it was Neil’s fucking influence — but Aaron’s instincts have kicked in before his head did, his fist flying before he could register what he was doing.

Aaron avoided Andrew’s eyes, gaze instead falling onto the orange fluff ball that was Rob, rubbing against Andrew’s legs. Has she been here the whole time?

As if hearing his thoughts, the little foxess looked up at him, the earlier mirth muted in her expression. Andrew crouched down and covered her eyes with his hand, lifting his gaze to lock eyes with Aaron. “You scared the children.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Aaron said, and scowled. “I’m going to Kaitlyn’s. You owe me a fucking rematch.”

“Mm,” Andrew replied, taking his hand off of Rob’s eyes and running his fingers through her fur. At a loss for possible further interaction, Aaron saw it best to just storm off, and hoped that Kaitlyn was in her dorm.

Too much fox interaction, he thought. Too much fucking fox interaction.

***

Aaron didn’t know what he did in his life to lead him to this position.

No, that wasn’t true. He knew why. Logically, he recalled every moment, every split second decision that has shaped the path to the here and the now. He knew which people were responsible, and exactly how they were responsible.

Oftentimes, Aaron got the feeling he had no control over his life. People around him have shaped the course of his entire life for… well, his entire life. When it wasn’t Tilda, it was Andrew, and when it wasn’t Andrew it was Nicky, or even Kaitlyn.

And then there were the people who had no idea they were fucking shit up all around them, like Riko or Neil, or the current bane of his existence — Rob. And it’s because of these people — and Co. — that Aaron was currently in the position he was currently in.

Aaron used to wonder what he could’ve done differently in his life, to avoid some of the particularly unfortunate happenings that have befallen him. But lately, two things have occurred to him: the first was the realisation that up until recently, he had done jack shit to shape his life, and his misfortune had generally been everyone else’s fault; and the second was that there was no point thinking about it, because he wasn’t a magician and he couldn’t go back to the past and change anything.

Aaron was starting to fear that Andrew was rubbing off on him.

Aaron glared down at Rob, who was napping in his lap. A particularly rough bump in the road had him scrambling to hold onto something, and his glare snapped to Andrew, who was looking innocently — well, as innocently as could be attributed to Andrew — ahead.

They were on their way back from their weekly session with Bee, and Andrew had been unbearably gleeful. But he wasn’t gleeful in the way that made a person nice and approachable — no, Andrew was incapable of being nice and approachable. _Oh, no_ , Aaron chuckled bitterly in the depths of his soul. Andrew was gleeful in the way that made him incomparably _evil_.

Aaron really couldn’t think of another reason why Andrew had decided to bring Rob along with them, except for that he’d woken up unprecedentedly evil today, and that he must’ve found special joy in ruining Aaron’s day and life and existence.

No other fucking reason.

A sharp turn had Aaron’s head knocking into the window, and he swore. “Who in their right mind gave you a license?”

“A mystery, isn’t it,” said Andrew, and made another sharp turn that had Aaron flailing the other way, making him instinctively put protective hands over Rob.

“That’s sweet,” said Andrew in the most indifferent voice Aaron’s ever heard.

“Why am I holding him,” Aaron spat. “It’s your fox. Take responsibility for it.”

“My hands are a little busy,” replied Andrew, and this time Aaron had the sense to brace for the turn.

“Then let me drive,” he said.

“Ha.”

“Come on,” Aaron said. “You let Neil drive.”

Andrew side-glanced at him. “He paid for the car.”

“I’m your brother!”

“Really,” Andrew deadpanned. “I didn’t notice.”

“Come on, Andrew,” Aaron said. “Why did you even bring Rob? She contributed nothing to the conversation.”

“She contributed more than you did.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s okay, I forgive you for your ignorance.”

“Andrew!”

Andrew side-glanced at him again, and Aaron swore he saw a malicious glint of amusement passing through his eyes, despite his mask of indifference.

“Oh, look,” Andrew pushed the breaks abruptly, tearing curses out of Aaron’s mouth as he braced his hand against the dashboard. “We’re here.”

“You’re not bringing Rob again,” Aaron said while climbing out of the Maserati, Rob in his arms. What a lazy fox. “Literally all she did was being pet all hour long.”

“But whomever might I pet if I don’t bring her?”

“This isn’t a petting session!” Aaron called. Was he for real? “I come here, every week without fail —“

“Some fail,” Andrew said, and Aaron glared at him.

“Every week with _little_ fail,” he said, “I come, and for an entire hour —“

“I mean, technically it’s fifty minutes,” Andrew said nonchalantly, lighting a cigarette.

“And for _fifty_ minutes,” Aaron gritted out, “I pour my heart out in front of you and let Bee psychoanalyse me, dissect me like a frog, unravel the intricacies of my childhood trauma. Do you think it’s easy?” he gestured wildly with one arm. “Do you think it’s easy, talking to you? You’re like… like… I don’t even know what you’re like! That’s how hard it is to talk to you!”

Andrew nodded gravely, flicking ash into the ground while looking at him.

“And then you bring this _monster_ ,” Aaron spat out, caught up in his own speech, “and instead of contributing to the session, you sit there, and you pet her, and do you think I can keep trying to fix my personality when she looks at me like that?”

Andrew tilted his head to the side. “Like what?”

“Like… like she can see into my _soul_ ,” Aaron said. “Like she knows there’s no fixing me.”

Andrew went quiet for a moment, and Aaron felt hope sprouting inside of him. Has he gotten through to him?

“She does has a gift,” Andrew finally said.

“Fuck you!” Aaron exclaimed. “You’re impossible!”

Andrew blew smoke in his face, and Aaron was ready to fucking deck him, when an unfamiliar voice invaded their conversation.

“And here we can see a family quarrel,” said someone behind them, and both Minyards snapped their heads toward the speaker — a reporter. He had a small microphone attached to his shirt, and next to him stood a man with a shaved head and a camera at hand.

“Quite the scoop, quite the scoop,” said the cameraman. “Is this it for the Minyard fraternity?”

Andrew actually snorted next to Aaron.

“And it isn’t the first time Andrew Minyard has estranged his own brother,” said the reporter into the microphone. “Minyard, is it true you’ve had a deep connection with a brother you’ve been estranged from?”

“Adoptive brother,” corrected the cameraman, and Andrew froze. Aaron saw red.

“Yes, yes, adoptive,” said the reporter, oblivious to their reactions. “What was his name? D —“

Aaron took a step forward, but before his fist flew free, Rob jumped right from his arms and lunged at the reporter, teeth bared and a deep growl slicing the air around them.

Aaron and Andrew both stared as Rob closed her teeth around the reporter’s arm, and the reporter yelled, stumbling backward. After a shocked moment, the cameraman discarded his camera to try and pry Rob off of his friend; but Rob didn’t give. The reporter tumbled to the ground, still yelling and waving his free arm around. Blood streamed down his caged arm, staining his shirt and skin a deep red.

“You — you — I’ll fucking sue you!” screamed the reporter as the cameraman successfully pried Rob off of him, almost getting bitten and scratched himself. Aaron quickly snatched Rob away from the man, hissing at her to calm down.

“Call a fucking ambulance!” yelled the cameraman, crouching over his friend, at a loss of what to do. The reporter was still yelling beside him, half in pain, half in a threat. “I’ll have this fox put down!”

“Right after you tell them about how you’ve transpassed into school grounds,” Aaron retorted coldly, keeping the seething Rob close to his chest. “Good luck with explaining that to the cops.”

Both the reporter and the cameraman blanched, but Aaron took no joy in their fear. He was too pissed for that.

He turned to Andrew, who seemed to have dragged himself out of his trance. He looked coldly back at him, though his body was no longer as tense as just a moment ago. To the sight, Rob instantly calmed down in Aaron’s arms.

“Let’s get out of here,” Aaron said, and without a word, Andrew turned around and began walking away, throwing the cigarette butt aside.

“Hey! Hey, come back here!” yelled the cameraman. Aaron glanced back at him to see him hovering over the reporter, who has paled significantly and grown quiet.

“You have a phone,” Aaron said. “Call yourself an ambulance. And don’t ever come back here.”

_Or you won’t come back out_ , went unsaid.

And he stalked off after Andrew, Rob held tight in his arms.

***

Kaitlyn paled. “And Rob didn’t hurt either of you?”

Aaron shook his head. “No, she calmed down almost immediately. It was so weird.”

“Huh,” she said, leaning back against her cushions. “Maybe she saw that Andrew snapped out of it.”

“How would she know, though?” said Aaron. “It’s not like she can understand anything we’re saying.”

“The same way you did,” she replied, a faint smile hanging from her lips. “Because she knows him.”

Aaron quietened. He knows him? In what world does he, Aaron Minyard, know his twin brother? His silent, unexpressive, infuriating brother? The brother who he’s spent half his life not knowing about, the same brother who has done nothing but hate and terrorize him for most of their shared lives?

He knows him, Aaron realized, paling. He punched a guy because he saw Andrew’s fingers go white. He was ready to kill a guy before that damning sentence was even completely out of his mouth.

When did he start knowing him?

Did Andrew know him back?

And, most importantly of all, how come a fucking _fox_ grew to know his brother in a week, when it took _him_ about a fucking _decade_?! Could that be why Andrew took Rob to therapy with them?

No, that didn't make sense.

Did it?

“Anybody home? Earth to Aaron.” Kaitlyn snapped her fingers in front of his face, and snickered at his expression. “Got lost there, didn’t you?”

“What — no,” he blurted. “No, I was just, you know, uh…”

Her expression softened. “It’s okay to be confused, you know.”

He sighed, shoulders slumping. “It’s all so complicated.”

“You’re family,” she said. “I mean, anything that happened between you two doesn’t change that.”

“Yeah, I know.” And how long did it take him to realise this simple fact? For all its simplicity, there was nothing more messy for him than that.

“And you protect each other,” she said. “Because that’s what family does.”

He looked at her. And she looked at him, completely serious and stoic. She was so sure, but how could she be that sure? How could she know?

But it was obvious, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it the whole point?

Hasn’t it always been?

“Yeah, I know,” he said, leaning into her. She squiggled to make room for him next to her, and they sunk into the cushions, entangled together. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“Anytime,” she said, placing a kiss on his cheek. Then, her lips split into a grin against his skin. “Say, does that mean Rob’s your long lost second brother?”

Aaron glared at her, and she burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, these chapters keep getting longer and longer. Oops. Thank you to everyone who sticks around to read it all, it means the world to me.  
> Sometime this week I plan on posting another shorter two-part fic that will have a lot more andriel and ~feelings~ than this one, so if you like my writing you can look forward to that. If everything goes according to plan, this fic's next chapter will go up in a week like (kind of) usual.
> 
> Next time: Renee discovers that the way to a fox's heart is - you guessed it, through its stomach.


	7. Renee

It started with Rob inconspicuously walking out of the changing rooms after practice, when Renee had been the only one there.

It continued with Rob burying her head inside Neil’s bag when Neil had left it with Renee, going to fetch something from the dorms.

Once, when she’d entered the very same dorms to take a book from Andrew, she saw a glimpse of orange fur disappearing under the bunkbed. She pretended to not have noticed anything while finding the book and quickly leaving.

The mental list of all the times Rob has avoided Renee was a long one. Even in rooms with other people, mainly the Foxes, Rob has shied away from her. She didn’t like to play with her. She never really looked at her, either.

Renee didn’t push. She kept her body language neutral — never advanced on the foxess, didn’t try to look big and overwhelming. She tried to be forthcoming, if anything. But it seemed Rob didn’t quite trust her. And so, it was safe to say that when Rob approached her for the first time, Renee was surprised.

She was sitting under a peach tree that they had on campus, reading a novel about a gruesome murder mystery. The lead protagonist, a mouthy young detective who’s had his job on the line since the opening chapter, was on the brink of a breakthrough; he was in the process of connecting all the dots, fingers hovering over the red strings, eyes darting between headlines and theories. She bit into a slice of apple as he exclaimed in delight, running to the door to head out into the field; but when he opened the door —

Something wet touched her hand, and Renee frowned, looking down from the page to see that the apple slice she was about the grab was in the process of being stolen.

Rob looked up at her and froze, the apple slice dangling from her mouth.

Renee smiled softly at the foxess, but Rob didn’t stir. Only when Renee nudged the container toward her did she move again, swallowing down the slice she has bitten onto, and reluctantly taking another.

Renee kept on reading, checking from the corner of the eye that Rob ate everything in the container. When it was empty, the foxess looked around, eyes halting over Renee; but Renee made no notion of having noticed her. She let the foxess inspect her at length, quite genuinely getting lost in the story again.

She did notice, though, when Rob collected herself and began walking away. When Renee saw the foxess’s back turn to her, she looked up from the book again. Rob wasn’t running; she wasn’t even walking all that quickly. And she didn’t look back when she slipped away from the grass, walking out of sight.

Renee smiled to herself, looking after the spot Rob had walked through just moments ago. And then she kept on reading the detective’s adventure.

From that day on, she made sure to always have some kind of a snack in her bag: apples, berries or even bite-size pieces of meat. Rob always perked up to their sight, and came over to steal some when it was just the two of them around. Sometimes, though, Rob refused to eat, even then; it seemed to be different every day. When Renee saw that Rob clearly wanted the snack but refused to eat it in front of her, she left it in front of the foxess and left the room. She never had any doubt that Rob had eaten it.

Somewhere along the way, Renee stationed a small bowl of foxy snacks outside her dorm room. She never saw Rob eat the food, but it was always gone by morning; and, like clockwork, Renee replenished it, integrating the act into her morning routine.

They coexisted like this for a few weeks, during which everyone has gotten used to Rob’s presence — both on the exy court and in Fox Tower. It was hard to remember how it’s been before her arrival, without the occasional giggling echoing throughout the building, or Neil waking everyone up while smuggling her outside in the middle of the night. Greeting her at practices and telling anyone who’d listen all about their mascot had become a tradition of sorts. When they had movie nights or team dinners, Rob was always invited, and almost always showed up to invoke chaos.

But it wasn’t all fun and giggles. Even though nothing has happened yet, except for a moderately disgruntled Kevin and an allegedly traumatised Aaron — he didn’t want to talk about it — Rob seemed to fit in nice and dandy. She seemed comfortable around them, and she seemed content.

Renee hadn’t thought about it before, but she wasn’t surprised when she finally saw the foxess crack.

It was a Monday afternoon, and Renee was passing through her dorm to get a book for her next lecture. She was a few steps away from the door when she saw someone huddled over Rob’s snack-bowl — it was orange, but too small to be Rob, and not nearly vigilant enough. It hadn’t noticed Renee at all, too busy gulping down the food.

It was a cat, Renee realised. A small, ginger cat, that had somehow managed to get into the building. Maybe through the fire escape, or an open window, or walking behind someone else while they came in.

The cat was filthy, thin and frizzy, and didn’t look like it’s been fed in the last few days. There were quite a few cats like it wandering around the campus, and Renee liked to feed them whenever she could. Some of them grew to recognize her enough that they actively sought her attention whenever she walked by them, and seeing them regain some weight and a healthy energy over time put her mind at ease.

This cat, however, she has never seen.

Before she could approach it, a low, familiar gekker echoed through the corridor. The cat remained undeterred, frantically chewing. It must have been terribly hungry, because it only reacted when Rob sprang at it, seemingly out of nowhere; the cat jumped back as Rob stood protectively over the bowl, teeth bared, eyes blazing wild. The cat arched its back and hissed at Rob, but Renee saw that it didn’t dare to get any closer. Rob stood just as still.

After a few moments, wherein both sides stared each other down, Rob let out a series of barks that sent the cat running. It ran by Renee on its way to the stairs, its form shaking and frail, and Renee’s heart momentarily clenched for it. She might go looking for it later, if she had anything left in the fridge to give it.

For now, though, there was a slightly more pressing issue at hand.

She approached Rob, who was standing over the empty bowl, looking down at it.

“Hey,” she said softly, and Rob looked up at her. Her eyes were startlingly wide and intense. Renee crouched before it, glancing into the bowl. Upon the closer inspection, it wasn’t completely empty, but it was a near thing — three pieces of meat were left, as opposed to the full bowl that had been there a few hours ago. What a hungry, hungry cat it must’ve been.

And Rob wasn’t even trying to eat what was left. She just stood over the bowl protectively, although somewhat less tense, and looked sad. Her ears had flattened, tail dragging across the floor.

“Wait here,” Renee told her, and got up. She unlocked the door and went straight for the fridge, looking for something to use to replenish the bowl. The fridge, however, was empty; she and Dan had planned on going grocery shopping later today.

She didn’t give up, though. She wasn’t going to go back to Rob empty-handed. And so, she searched the drawers and cabinets, until she came across a small basket of strawberries. It wasn’t meat, but it was something.

When she opened the door, she found Rob lying flat beside the now-empty bowl, head resting against her front paws. She lifted her chin toward Renee as soon as she had come out, eyes blazing bright, and followed Renee’s movements when that spilled the strawberries into the bowl.

“There you go,” Renee said, smiling at the foxess. “This ought to keep you busy until tomorrow.”

Rob had her eyes trained on the bowl, but she didn’t move.

Renee’s smile faltered, ever so slightly. It wasn’t because Rob was so cautious around her; she didn’t mind that. All newcomers were cautious. It was just that she hated seeing her doing this on autopilot. Even though Rob has been vigilant around the other Foxes at first, she’d warmed up to them unconditionally, it seemed; but not to Renee, not completely.

There was something about her, Renee knew, that made runaways run from her. That made them want to walk in the opposite direction.

Renee has struggled with this herself for a long while — the inability to look at herself, lest she recognised the shadows in her eyes. Her reflection was a reminder, and it was impossible to ignore once one has noticed it; like looking in a mirror, they wanted to look away, if only because it reminded them that they no longer looked like themselves.

Renee knew that behind the dyed hair the kind smile, there was something darker, something which didn’t belong in the light. This knowledge was the very reason she has tried so hard to bury it down — keep it six feet under, where it could only breathe the dirt and see the dark.

Only those who’ve dug graves of their own could see that she had one. A hole in the ground; one that could never truly be covered up.

Renee was stirred out of her thoughts by the sensation of something bumping into her. Looking down, she saw Rob look back up at her, and the foxess bumped into her again.

Renee slowly crouched down, and Rob put her head in her lap. Gingerly, Renee put her hand in her fur. Rob didn’t pull away, and neither did she look somewhere else. She held still under her touch but didn’t avert her eyes; she let her know that it was alright.

The smile tugged again at the corners of Renee’s lips, and she rubbed her fingers through the foxess’s fur to the rhythm of her calm breathing.

When it was time for Renee to go to her lecture, Rob was sound asleep. She blinked her eyes open when Renee carefully stood up, but they quickly fell shut again. Renee went into her room to grab the textbook, and when she went back out and locked the door, Rob was asleep again.

Maybe she wasn’t as hungry anymore, Renee thought. But no matter. When she’d grow hungry again, there will always be food waiting for her, right then and there.

Even if someone were to take it away from her, Rob wouldn’t be left to fend for herself. Renee was determined to give Rob her own little sanctuary; a place where it wasn’t fight or die. Somewhere where surviving was a fact, a right.

When she came back from the lecture, both Rob and the strawberries were gone. That night, Renee went to bed with a faint smile and a calm heart.

But it always ended the same. After all, a runaway’s nature was to run away, to disappear — so when Renee woke up to find an exy team in chaos and panicking, with two Foxes injured and one missing, she couldn’t honestly say she hadn’t seen it coming.

Sanctuaries were sometimes only meant to be temporary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Next time: what are the Foxes to do when they lose hold of one of their own?


	8. Matt

Matt burst through the door, Nicky in tow. “What’s going on?”

No one reacted to them. Neil was sitting on the floor, clutching his arm. Andrew, beside him, had three bloody gashes across his cheek and a look of pure death in his eyes. Matt heard Nicky gasp beside him, and halted.

His eyes skittered to the kitchen entrance when Renee showed up with rolls of gauze, Allison right behind her with disinfectants piled in her arms. The room was a mess; Kevin was sitting on the bed in just his boxers, staring at his roommates on the floor, slashed pillows strewn around them and covers flung on the ground. There were scratch marks on the bed-frame and drops of blood on the floorboards.

“Nicky, Matt,” Renee greeted them as she and Allison started helping Neil and Andrew clean themselves up.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked again, right as Dan burst into the room from the hallway. Everyone lifted their eyes to her.

“She’s gone,” she said, breathless. “I can’t find her anywhere. She just disappeared.”

Matt’s eyes widened. “ _Rob_ did this?”

Dan nodded, still regathering her breath.

“She freaked out,” Neil said from the floor. All eyes turned back to him as Andrew applied reddening gauze to his arm; his posture was stiff, voice too level. “It was an accident, I swear. It was too dark.”

“What was an accident?” Nicky gingerly asked.

Neil’s eyes flicked to the floor. “I kicked her. I swear, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even see her there. She freaked out, and, I mean, I don’t blame her. I tried to calm her down but she bit me, and then ran off.”

“She _what?_ ”

“Bit me. I’m fine.” Several glares snapped at him, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s nothing. What’s important is that she ran away, and we have to find her before something bad happens to her.”

“She just… ran out?” Matt frowned.

“Andrew freaked out on her,” Kevin cut in. “So she ran off, after doing… that.” He gestured at Andrew’s face, then buried his head in his arms. “I’m living with a bunch of idiots.”

“Because you’re that much better,” Neil snapped at him.

“Guys,” Dan said. “Calm down. Fighting won’t help anyone right now.”

“We have to find her,” Neil insisted. “We can’t just let her take off.”

“What _you_ need,” Allison said, examining them with her eyebrows pinched, “is to see Abby. This is messy.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I don’t know, man, that’s a lot of blood,” Matt said. Neil glared at him and got up from the floor, arm only half-wrapped and insecure in the gauze. Before any of them could react, Andrew grabbed Neil’s wrist, and Neil winced.

“You’re not going anywhere like that,” Andrew said.

“This is my fault, Andrew,” Neil said with a clenched jaw. “I have to fix this.”

“Hey, buddy,” Matt said, approaching him. “We’ll look for her. You two get some medical attention. We’ll find her for you.”

Neil opened his mouth to protest, but Allison beat him to it. “You guys go look for her. Me and Renee will stay and make sure no one bleeds out until Abby gets here.”

Matt, Dan and Nicky all nodded frantically, eager to leave. Kevin, on the other hand, let out a long sigh.

“You too, Kevin,” Allison said without looking back.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, and stood up. “Did I not say this was going to happen? Oh, but _no_ one listened to me. And now it’s two and a half in the morning and all hell’s breaking loose, and tomorrow morning Aaron will be the only one to show up to practice _again_. Is this what you want? For Aaron to be the only one to function this season? And he’s not even going on to an exy career! And those who do,” he glared at Neil and Andrew, “don’t give a damn. They chase foxes instead of balls. How is that gonna help them in life _at all_?”

“Kevin,” Matt said.

“What?”

Several voices replied with, “shut up.”

***

They decided to split up. Dan and Nicky went to search the buildings and their surroundings, while Kevin and Matt took Matt’s truck and began to scour the streets.

They drove at least an hour, going in circles in different directions, driving too far and then coming back and trying somewhere else. At some point, light rain began tapping at the roof of the truck. At Kevin’s insistence, Matt was driving along the way to the court — it was a familiar street for her, Kevin had said. But they were almost at the court, and there was still no sign of Rob. The only thing they’ve noticed so far was the rain getting heavier; so much so that Matt could barely see the road through the windshield. It was hammering down overhead.

“So, Kevin,” Matt said.

“What?”

Matt leaned his elbow against the window, squinting to see something through the rain. “How’s it been living with Rob?”

“Awful,” Kevin said, and fell quiet. Matt thought that was it for the small talk; but a few moments later, Kevin continued. “But they really like her.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, with Neil it’s obvious,” Kevin said. “They’re practically the same person in different… forms. And Andrew acts like he doesn’t care, but, frankly, he’s kind of obvious too.”

“I thought he didn’t care about anything,” Matt said.

Kevin gave him a sidelong look. “We both know that’s not true.”

Matt sighed at the image of the certain redhead that popped into his head. By now, they all knew that Andrew most definitely cared about Neil, even if he were the only thing he cared about in the entire world. Or, at least, close enough. “Does he care about Rob, though?” Matt wondered out loud. “I mean, he’s the reason Rob ran away.”

“He scared her,” Kevin said.

“He could’ve hurt her.”

Kevin was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, he could’ve.”

Matt had to stifle the grimace that came onto his face at the verification. He wanted to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt, for Neil’s sake — but none of them could ignore his tendencies, nor their consequences.

“I don’t think he meant to, though,” Kevin said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think he _wanted_ to hurt her. I think,” Kevin said, “that Andrew woke up to see Neil hurt, and panicked.”

“ _Panicked_?” Matt’s voice pitched. “ _Andrew_? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s happened before,” Kevin said. “Violence is just his way to counteract it.”

“It’s a lousy way.”

“Still his way.”

“I just,” Matt said, “I can’t stand the thought of him hurting Rob, you know? Or Neil, for that matter. I don’t trust him.”

“I do,” Kevin said.

“How can you?”

Kevin shrugged. “He’s never done what he didn’t have to do. He didn’t hurt Rob, you know. He didn’t hurt any of us.”

“He almost snapped Allison’s neck last year.” Matt’s voice was laced with venom.

“But he didn’t.”

“He almost _did_.”

“Like you said,” Kevin replied, eyes looking ahead, “it’s a lousy way. But it has its perks — it’s kept him alive, kept me alive. I trust him because I know him, Matt, even if it’s only a little bit. And I know that if he’d known it was Rob, he wouldn’t have tried to hurt her.”

Matt sighed — a deep inhale, followed by a gradual exhale and a long blink. It made no sense in such a way that it almost did, but he couldn’t get himself to honestly believe in it.

“He isn’t a monster,” Kevin said. “Whatever you all might think. He doesn’t hurt for the sake of hurting.”

That was when Matt noticed something orange lying beside the road, and his heart plummeted in his chest. He pushed the breaks so hard that the truck nearly tumbled sideways, and sprang out into the pouring rain, slamming the door behind him. Kevin hurried out after him, his eyes wide and pale.

They ran to the side of the road where they saw— where they saw—

But when Matt crouched down beside the animal, he saw that even though it was orange, it wasn’t Rob.

“It’s a cat,” Matt said. Relief washed over him for the splitest second, before his heart clenched, and he internally cursed himself. The cat was thin and ragged, its ginger stripes frizzy and dirty, way too dark in the rainy night. For a moment, both he and Kevin were very still, neither clueful of what to do; it wasn’t the first time Matt’s seen a dead animal, for sure, but… this one hit too close to home.

“It’s still alive,” Kevin said suddenly, and Matt perked up. “It’s still breathing.”

And when Matt looked closely again, he saw that indeed, the cat’s chest was painstakingly moving up and down.

“We have to get it help,” Matt said.

“Abby,” said Kevin, gingerly picking up the cat. They rose from the ground and headed for the truck, but while Kevin climbed back into the passenger seat, Matt remained still in his spot.

“Matt, we have to hurry,” Kevin told him.

“You go,” Matt replied. “Take her to Abby. I’ll keep looking for Rob.”

“Are you crazy?” Kevin’s voice rose against a thunder splitting the sky overhead. The truck lit up an electrical blue for a split second, before they were plunged back into darkness. “We’ve already looked everywhere for her!”

“I want to check again!” Matt called back over the intensifying rain. “I think you might’ve been right, Kevin. She could be somewhere along this road — it’s the only road she knows.”

“Fine.” Matt saw Kevin squiggle into the driver seat, careful on the cat secured in his lap. Matt knew that if it hadn’t been for the cat’s injuries, Kevin would’ve insisted that Matt come with him — but they both knew there wasn’t enough time for that. “Just find her.”

Matt looked after the truck as Kevin made a sharp U-turn and accelerated back toward Fox Tower, disappearing into the fog in seconds. He turned back toward the road up ahead, and, pulling the hood of his coat over his head, started walking alongside the road.

He walked as the rain soaked him, and kept walking still when a few thunders roared overhead, making him flinch. The closer he got to the court, though, the more the spark of hope in him diminished, and he was starting to think that maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe Rob wasn’t here; maybe she took off to never come back again. Or maybe Kevin was the one who’d been wrong — maybe they haven’t left that much of an impression on her for her to remember the way to their second home.

The rain was beginning to lighten overhead, and by the time he reached the court’s parking lot, it faded into a mere drizzle. The clouds cleared to allow a few snippets of moonlight to wash over the place, which was empty, no cars or people to be seen.

_No_ , Matt starkly realized. It wasn’t empty.

On the spot where Andrew’s car usually parked, a small, orange something curled up on itself against the ground. Despite the tree branching over the spot, the asphalt was soaked through, as was the orange fur.

Matt approached Rob, and she looked up at him. She didn’t startle; maybe she’d seen him coming. Or maybe she recognised him.

Matt crouched in front of her, his clothes dripping wet, hair flat on his forehead, and wiped the water from his eyes. “Hiya there, Rob.”

Rob buried her face in her own fur, and Matt’s forehead creased. “What’s wrong?”

When she didn’t react, Matt reached out a ginger hand and put it on her head the way he’s seen Dan do it. He didn’t lift it, though, until Rob looked at him again.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?” Matt said, more to himself than to her. She tilted her head. “Andrew really scared you, didn’t he.”

At the sound of Andrew’s name, Rob pulled away from him.

“He’s not here,” Matt told her. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

Rob let out a low whine, and buried her head in her fur again. She didn’t look at him, even when he reached out to her again; she only let out another barely audible whine. It almost looked like she was… ashamed.

“He isn’t…” Matt’s words trailed off in his mouth. “He’s okay.”

Rob looked up at him.

_Oh_.

“I don’t think he’s mad at you anymore,” he said quietly. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”

But she knew that already, didn’t she? Matt thought of all the times he’d seen her curled up in Andrew’s lap, purring or napping or playing with his shirt. He’d never seen her fear Andrew. She was never really all that cautious around him, either; and, now that he thought about it, it probably seemed as if there was no reason for her to be, from her perspective. Andrew has never acted aggressively toward her, has he?

Until tonight.

Matt pet Rob’s forehead, and lightly tapped her nose. She bared her teeth, but not viciously; it was a faint warning, more of an instinctual reaction than a threat. And even though he knew she’d bitten Neil, and slashed Andrew, and wrecked their dormroom, he wasn’t scared of her.

It was Rob. He knew her; she knew him. Their gazes interlocked in the late-night moonlight, and Matt smiled sadly at her.

“Come on,” he told her, opening his arms. Rob hesitated, but Matt didn’t stir, didn’t cower, and didn’t look away, until she climbed into his hold. She was just as soaked as him; her fur was messy and heavy with water, but it didn’t look like she was hurt. She buried her nose in his chest when he stood up, and he pulled her close. “Let’s go home.”

***

They arrived at Fox Tower with sunrise.

They were both dry, yet both still freezing. Matt allowed Rob to climb into his coat, so that she was pressed against his shirt, her head peeking up from the parting of the zipper under his collar. Her fluffy ears itched against his chin.

Matt painstakingly made his way into the building and up the stairs, which, save for the two of them, were vacant. When he reached their floor, he immediately went to Neil and Co.’s dormroom, and knocked three executive times.

The door opened instantly, and Matt was startled to see Andrew glaring at him from the threshold. His cheek sported a large bandage that sent Matt’s mind reeling back to last year, and to all the bandages that had covered Neil’s face back then. He shoved the recollection away, and instead unzipped his coat to reveal the rest of Rob.

“I found Rob,” he said.

Andrew’s tense gaze softened just the slightest bit before his face donned its usual blank mask. A shuffling noise came from inside the room, and a moment later Neil appeared, nearly running into Andrew in his haste. His arm was bandaged and hanging from a white sling. “Is she okay?”

“I think so,” Matt said, cradling Rob in his arms. She rested her head against his chest, fluffy ears once again itching against his chin. “Probably just cold.”

“She’s bleeding,” Andrew noted.

Matt’s eyes widened as he looked down at the foxess in his arms. Under the building’s artificial lights, he saw that Andrew was right — there were streaks of dry blood sticking to scratches in her fur. They must have blended into Rob’s orange complexion in the dark, and Matt, in his rush to help her, hadn’t noticed it.

“We have to take her to Abby,” Neil said. And that reminded Matt—

“The cat,” he said, glancing behind the two in search of Kevin. “How’s the cat?”

“He’s okay,” Neil said. “He was nearly too far gone for a while there, but he’s okay now. Abby says he should make a full recovery in a few weeks.”

“Thank God,” Matt sighed, relief washing over him. “Wait — if the cat’s okay, where’s Kevin?”

“He left because Neil wouldn’t stop bitching about Rob,” Andrew supplied, and Neil scowled.

“It was completely justified. Rob was in danger. Kevin’s the bitch in this situation.”

“Whoever the bitch is,” Matt interrupted, “the important thing is that Rob’s here and in one piece. She _is_ hurt, though, so I’ll take her to —“

“I’ll go,” Andrew said. “Hand her over.”

“Hey,” Matt protested, brow creasing. “You can’t just…”

Andrew lifted his eyebrows at him, his expression somehow still completely passive. “Do tell me, Boyd,” he said, “what it is that I can’t do.”

“Right,” Matt said, biting his inner cheek. He debated the issue for about six milliseconds, before giving in. “Fine. Take her.” But when he handed Rob over, he caught Andrew’s gaze, and dawned the most intimidating glare he could master. “Don’t hurt her.”

Andrew held his gaze for a few stretching seconds, before pulling Rob close to his chest. Still looking at Matt, he said, “I won’t.”

And then he sidestepped Matt and vanished down the stairs.

Matt looked back to Neil, whose eyes trailed after Andrew. “So, Neil, my buddy, how are you?”

Neil’s eyes flicked back to Matt and he grinned. “Peachy.”

Matt gave him a chiding look, which did nothing to diminish his friend’s cheerful energy. “Do me a favour,” he said, and Neil’s eyebrows perked in the familiar _anything_ gesture — which, at this point, became almost automatic between them. “Take care of your arm, will you?”

Neil nodded. “I’ll be as good as new in two weeks.”

“And even better in three,” Matt said, knowing that Neil’s definition of _new_ was _damaged, but not causing excruciating pain when holding a racquet._

Neil’s smile morphed into an apologetic one as he shrugged, and winced. “Two and a half.”

“Yeah, okay, we’ll see,” Matt said, voice trailing into a yawn. “Also, get some sleep.”

“You too,” Neil replied.

Matt turned to leave, but before he could get away, Neil called his name. He looked back to see Neil leaning against the doorway on his good side, his playful expression muted into a serious one. “Thank you.”

Matt’s expression softened.

“Anytime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will the cat be secretly, sneakily adopted by the Foxes? *shrugs* who knows.  
> Next chapter will hopefully be more lighthearted again, I just needed to get the angst out of my system. Thank you for reading!<3
> 
> Next time: Neil shows up with a ridiculously large fox plushie, and Rob absolutely loves it.


	9. Neil

It was just another completely normal Tuesday afternoon.

Neil, at Allison’s endless insistence, has finally gone on a self-care day with the company of him and himself and a pocket full of money to spend. It was an odd experience, to say the least; at first he didn’t even know what he was supposed to do. When he’d called Allison, she told him to do something he likes, buy something nice, eat some junk food. And despite his confusion, he did as she told him: he went to Excites and bought a Trojans hat, with the sole purpose of seeing Kevin’s jealous face when he would later wear it; then, he continued on to eat a nice salad in a nice coffee shop while reading the free exy magazine that came with the purchase.

After two hours, he felt sufficiently self-cared for, and was by all means ready to go back home. But when Allison had tasked him with this mission, she said that he had to be young and free for at least four hours, because if she saw him come back any earlier than that, she’d personally drive him back to the mall and leave him there.

With a sigh, the Excites plastic bag dangling from his fingers, Neil left the coffee shop.

And that was when he saw it.

Neil stopped in his tracks, slightly wide eyes staring at the window of a toy shop from across the coffee shop. Looking back at him was the largest fox plushie Neil has ever seen in his life — which, admittedly, wouldn’t mean much, since he’s never really seen a fox plushie; but even if he’d seen any, he was sure this would’ve been the largest. Because it was _massive_. Enormous. Absolutely colossal.

He went into the shop, joy sparking in his heart.

***

“What. The fuck. Is that.”

Neil smiled apologetically at Andrew, the Trojans hat blocking half his vision, as he struggled to fit the fox plushie through the door with only one currently-usable hand.

“No, seriously,” Andrew said, half-circling the struggling Neil without any visible intention of helping him. “What the fuck.”

“It was on sale,” Neil panted, stumbling as he pulled the plushie inside. Taking a moment to breathe, he leaned against the plushie, and adjusted his hat so that he saw Andrew’s full frame. Andrew narrowed his eyes at him, mouth just slightly agape.

At that moment, Kevin stalked into the room from the kitchen with a yogurt in hand. When he looked up, he yelped and jumped back, yogurt almost flying from his hold. “What the flying _fuck_ is _that_?!”

“His name’s Robbie,” Neil said.

“No.” Andrew has schooled his features back into indifference, and his voice was just as flat.

“What do you mean, _no_?” Neil said. “He’s mine. I get to name him.”

“What the _fuck_ , Neil?” Kevin exclaimed. “It’s bigger than me!”

Neil looked up at the plushie he was currently still leaning against. “Yeah, it’s pretty big.”

“It’s motherfucking _huge_!”

“It was also surprisingly cheap,” Neil noted. “And soft. The cashier said it was the last of them.”

“Who in their right mind would buy a plushie this big?” Kevin said. “You’re getting out of control, Neil.”

“ _Me_?” Neil’s voice pitched. “What have I bought in my life, ever? You’re the one who keeps going on spontaneous shopping sprees. I keep having to throw away your shit.”

“You’re the one who’s been doing that? I thought that was Andrew!”

“Andrew doesn’t care what you buy. And he doesn’t mind Robbie, either.”

Kevin’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, he doesn’t, does he?” he looked to Andrew. “Andrew, do you think this is reasonable? You can’t possibly think that.”

Andrew looked at Kevin blankly, and that sighed melodramatically, grabbing his forehead in a distressed-Victorian-wife style. “I’m going to get some air. Has anyone seen Steve?”

At the inquiry, a ginger, ragged cat limped out from under Kevin’s bed and approached him, meowing up at him. Kevin picked it up and headed for the door. “You,” he vehemently said to Neil right before he left, then trailed off. “…I have nothing to say to you.”

“Cheers to that!” Neil called after him as Kevin slammed the door behind him. Then, Neil turned back to Andrew, who was staring at Robbie.

“So, what do you think?” Neil asked conversationally. “Oh, that reminds me! I got you something.”

Andrew looked at him while he pulled a pair of fox-ears out of his Excites plastic bag. There was a long, thin silence between them.

“Do I look like a furry to you?” Andrew finally said.

Neil frowned. “What’s a furry?”

Andrew blinked at him, and then walked to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a smoke,” was all Andrew said, before he was gone.

Neil looked at the door for a few moments, and then looked up at Robbie. “All in all, I think that went well. Don’t you agree?”

***

Robbie lived in the cramped area beside the television, purely because he didn’t fit anywhere else. The space between the bunk beds was too small, and Kevin threatened murder on Neil when that tried to push Robbie onto his bed. Everywhere else was in the way of something — the front door, the kitchen, the bathroom. So Neil settled on stationing the massive plushie by the television, where it just barely avoided invoking Aaron’s wrath about slightly blocking the screen. _It wasn’t like he lived there, anyway,_ Neil told himself.

Most everyone seemed disapproving of the plushie, except for Allison, who was absolutely delighted and seemed to have grown slightly richer because of it. Neil was just relieved that he wouldn’t be forced into another self-care day anytime soon.

And, of course, there was Rob.

Rob was in love.

“Has she been like this the whole time?” Matt asked him one evening, when he came to show Neil some video. Rob was snuggled against the plushie, fast asleep and looking serene. She’d been in the exact same position yesterday, when Matt had come to show Neil a different video.

“I took her out on a walk last night,” Neil said, “but otherwise, yeah.”

“Man, does she love this plushie. I still can’t believe you actually bought it.”

Neil grinned. “Blame Allison.”

“Believe me, I am,” Matt said. “We all are. Definitely Allison’s fault. Kevin almost released Steve on her.”

“Oh no,” said Neil.

“Luckily!” Matt exclaimed, “I stopped him and banned him from bringing that devil cat anywhere near us again.”

“He’s not a devil cat,” protested Neil. “He’s just rough around the edges.”

“Oh, no,” Matt said. “ _Rob_ is rough around the edges. That cat is a psychopath.”

That was when they heard the bathroom door creak open, followed by Andrew’s voice. “Neil!”

Both Matt and Neil turned to see Andrew walking out of the bathroom, the fox-ears sticking out of his hair. When he saw Matt, he froze in his step, then turned around and walked back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

“Was that —“

“I’ll be right back,” Neil said, smiling thinly at Matt and running toward the bathroom. He knocked twice. “Andrew, it’s me.”

For a moment, Neil thought Andrew was going to ignore him, but then there was a faint _click_ of the lock and Andrew opened the door, grabbed Neil by the collar and pulled him inside, slamming the door shut again.

Neil scowled as he adjusted his shirt and straightened. When he looked at Andrew, he was almost startled to see his cheeks and neck burning a red to match his fox-ears.

“It looks cute on you,” Neil said. Andrew glared at him.

“One day,” he said between gritted teeth, “I will actually kill you.”

Neil smirked. “Do you like it?”

Andrew looked at himself in the mirror, touching one of the ears as he examined his reflection. He tilted his head to one side and then another, and halted when he caught Neil’s gaze from the mirror. Their eyes interlocked. “Yes or no?”

“Depends,” Neil said.

“On?”

“Do you like it?”

Andrew’s eyes lifted to the ears in the mirror, and then lowered back to Neil. “Yes.”

“Then yeah,” Neil said. Andrew turned around and pushed Neil against the bathroom’s door, lips smashing into his.

When they paused to breathe, Neil felt a smile tingle at his face. “Does this mean you’re a furry, then?”

Andrew’s eyes flashed open. Neil heard the lock click behind his back, and suddenly he was pushed outside, fox-ears hitting his face as the door slammed shut in his face.

Disoriented, Neil turned around with the fox-ears in his hand, and saw Matt staring at him. He opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

“Matt,” Neil finally said. “Do you know what a furry is?”

Matt burst out laughing loud enough for Rob to startle out of her sleep, and tumble from Robbie to the floor. “Neil, you clueless son of my mine, how undeserving of you this world is.”

Neil lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Matt said. “I think Andrew there needs a moment to compose himself.”

Neil frowned, shooting a glance behind him at the closed bathroom door. Then he shrugged and followed Matt.

***

Later that day, when night washed in, the Foxes of Fox Tower all gathered to perform their weekly movie-night ritual, plus a cat.

Neil and Nicky have joined forces to move Robbie in front of the television, where the couch and the beanbags were, so it could be used as another sitting place. Rob walked around and between their legs the whole process, clawing at the giant plushie; these days, she refused to part from it if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. And so, when Neil and Nicky were done, she unceremonially dumped herself against it and closed her eyes.

“I can’t decide if this… _thing_ is your best or worst decision,” Nicky said, clamping his hands together. Before Neil could reply, the door behind them opened to reveal the girls and Matt, who had a stack of movies and yet unmicrowaved packages of popcorn in his arms.

“Are we all here?” said Dan.

“Aaron and Andrew should come back from their session with Bee sometime soon,” Nicky said. “And Kevin… where _is_ Kevin?”

“He took Steve to a checkup at Abby’s,” Neil said.

“Well, let’s choose a movie while they’re on their way,” said Allison, grabbing a few discs from Matt and examining them. “Ohhhh this is perfect!”

Neil came over and tilted his head to read the movie’s title. “Stuart Little?”

“Oh, yes, that’s a good one,” Dan said. “It’s about a family who adopts a talking mouse.”

Neil looked at her blankly.

“And the cat mafia tries to assassinate him!” Nicky called out. “Oh, I adore this movie. Neil, you _have_ to watch it.”

“Cat… mafia?”

“Okay, then it’s decided,” Allison declared, walking over to the T.V. “Matt can make the popcorn in the meantime.”

“At your service,” Matt said and disappeared into the kitchen.

Neil walked across the room and flopped against the fox plushie, careful not to squish Rob. She blinked at him, shuffled to climb onto his lap, then closed her eyes again when he started to absentmindedly pet her.

It wasn’t long before Andrew and Aaron walked into the room, Andrew pointedly ignoring Neil’s expectant look. A few minutes later, Kevin arrived with Steve in his arms, blubbering about antibiotics to answer no-one’s question. Steve jumped off his hold and walked over to Neil, who let him lie down on top of him beside the foxess.

“What a merry little family,” Aaron said dryly as he passed by the plushie, and Neil glared at him.

“At least Rob and Steve aren’t fighting anymore,” said Renee, and smiled. “I think it’s adorable. Wouldn’t you agree, Andrew?”

Andrew glanced at her briefly, before sprawling himself across the entire sofa.

“Andrew, move,” Aaron said, standing over him.

“No.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Aaron muttered, dropping into a beanbag.

When they were all arranged in some semblance of readiness, Matt having come back with bags of popcorn to last a family of seven for three days, Allison started the movie.

“Stuart Little?” Andrew said, and Neil could almost see him crinkle his nose. “Isn’t this movie about the cat mafia?”

“And the mouse,” Aaron said. “Nicky, didn’t we watch this a few years ago?”

“Hushhh-shh!” Allison exaggeratedly whispered. “It’s starting.”

Neil’s eyes were hyper-focused on the screen, and he found himself rooting for the small mouse almost instantly. He smiled when Stuart won the boat race and couldn’t help the soft, barely audible “nooo” that came out of his mouth when Stuart left with his biological parents. During the progression of the movie, Andrew has somehow managed to gradually move from the sofa to the plushie, and by the time Stuart figured out the assassination plan and was trying to come back home, Neil found himself pressed against the blond midget, Rob and Steve both fast asleep on top of him.

“Oh, come on,” Neil mumbled against Andrew’s chest when Stuart’s car refused to start.

“Don’t worry, it’ll start,” Andrew quietly said.

They were both almost holding their breath during the cat-mouse chase scene, as the countless cats breezed through the forest after Stuart’s car. When the car drove into the sewer-water, leaving the cats stranded overhead, they both relaxed.

“I’m sorry I called you a furry,” Neil quietly said, and felt Andrew’s breath hitch.

“Shut up, junkie,” Andrew replied, just as quiet. Despite how invested he was in Stuart’s little adventure, Neil felt his eyes starting to droop, and he couldn’t help but snuggle closer against Andrew.

“Junkie,” Andrew whispered into his ear, barely audible, “yes or no?”

“Always a yes,” Neil mumbled.

Andrew planted a chaste kiss against his temple. “I can feel your heart racing.”

Neil felt his cheeks warming. “The movie’s that exciting.”

“It is, isn’t it,” said Andrew. Neil caught the briefest glance from Nicky’s place on the sofa, before that averted his eyes back to the movie. Neil yawned, burying his face in Andrew’s chest.

“Go to sleep,” Andrew mumbled in his ear. “I’ll tell you how it ends.”

Neil nodded barely, and let his eyes fall shut against the T.V’s dancing lights.

When he slept, he dreamt of cats and mice and all kinds of foxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll tell you a secret: you can tell how tired/sleepy I am as I'm writing by the state of the pov character hehe. Anyway, thanks for reading.
> 
> Next time: the grand finale of the Rob Chronicles, in which Rob comes to a realization.


	10. Rob

The day was sunny, which meant comfort.

Rob was lazing away in the sun, sprawled against the steps to Fox Tower. Neil was sitting next to her, wearing an orange sweatshirt with a white fox paw on it, forearms leaning forward against his knees. Rob didn’t pay much mind to him, eyes drooping against the concrete, but she found solace in his presence.

Rob blinked at him curiously when his phone started ringing, and he answered it. “Andrew,” he said, and her ears perked up. As similar as she was to Neil, though, the one difference between them was that she was a fox — and, as such, she understood nothing of the conversation, except for picking up on Neil’s sudden cheerfulness.

Shoving his phone into his back pocket, Neil stood up, and gestured for her to follow him. She stretched, revelling in the sunlight soaking into her fur just another moment, and then ran down the steps after the redhead.

They walked to the parking lot, where Neil picked her up and got into the passenger seat of Andrew’s car. Andrew was sitting by the wheel, and Rob barked a greeting at him, to which Andrew saluted, turning on the engine.

Rob looked curiously between the two as they exchanged words, and perked up again when the court came into sight. When they parked and Neil opened the door, Rob jumped from his hold outside, and trailed after Andrew toward the gate. Andrew let her bypass him inside, and she walked straight toward the field, finding the Palmetto exy team scattered around a large, white fabric spread across the ground.

She clawed at the plexiglass until the team noticed her, and Dan walked over the court to let her inside. She ran after Dan as that walked back to the massive fabric. From up close, Rob saw that most of the team members were bent over it, crouching or on their knees, holding large brushes and painting in letters in bold orange paint that matched Neil’s sweatshirt. Dan rubbed behind Rob’s ears before going back to the task at hand.

Rob walked curiously around the fabric. Andrew and Neil, not far behind her, exchanged a few words with Dan before grabbing brushes of their own and joining Kevin on a far end of the fabric, which Kevin seemed to have manned on his own up until now. Rob walked across the fabric toward them and barked at him; Kevin looked at her dryly, his brush dripping orange, before dipping it in the paint tray that stood between them. Rob took it as the invitation it wasn’t and put her paws in the paint.

“Rob!” Neil called, and she looked to him, ears flattening at his stern look. He said something to Andrew, whose arm halted mid-brush as he looked up to Rob. His eyes flicked to her paws, which were still buried in orange paint on the tray. He said something to Neil, and Neil rolled his eyes in response, putting his brush down behind him on the grass, before standing up to grab her.

Rob giggled at him, assuming, as she often now did, playfulness. So when Neil bent to pick her up, she bared her teeth and evaded him, paws splashing in the paint. Kevin yelped as orange splattered across his shirt and face, and Andrew passively leaned away from them, though a spot of paint caught him on the nose. Neil paused, before going to grab her again. “Rob!”

Rob giggled and skittered off the tray, to the sound of definitely-more-than-three voices exclaiming, “ _Rob_!”

Neil leaped over the paint tray after her, and she broke into a run across the fabric. Several different pairs of arms went to grab her — but she was, after all, a master of evasion, so neither them nor Neil’s chase managed to hold her down. She jumped over some trays and into others, splashing up paint, and by the time Neil caught up to her, both of them were breathless and orangier than when they’d entered the court.

Neil held her close to his chest, lying flat on his back on the grass a few feet away from the fabric. Rob was giggling faintly, but had no energy left to continue skittering around in her playful mania. A dozen or so faces were staring at them — mainly, at her — with disbelief, with the exception of Andrew, who continued painting in the letters as if nothing has happened.

The fabric was now marked with an intricate trail of fox paws. Dan had her face in her hands, with an amused Matt patting her on the shoulder in consolation.

After a few beats of silence, wherein everyone remained still save for the careless Andrew who went on painting, Renee reached over to the nearest paint tray and put her hand in it. She declared something that Rob didn’t understand, and put her hand on the fabric. When she lifted it, there was a bright orange handprint on the fabric and a satisfied smile on her lips.

Rob jumped from Neil's chest onto his lap when that sat up, and they both looked around the team as they reached over to their respective paint trays and put their hands in them, then flopped said hands on the free spaces of the fabric. Neil took Rob off of him and put her down on the grass, then walked around the fabric toward Andrew, who put his paintbrush down. They exchanged a few words, then put their palms in the paint and on the fabric. Kevin copied them.

Rob started going toward them, but before she could step on the fabric again, a pair of firm hands picked her up and put her down away from it. She looked up to see Matt smiling at her. He said something, and she followed his gaze to the trail of fox paws marking the fabric.

Rob tilted her head, ears flapping aside.

Matt sighed, said something else and pet her on the head. She bared her teeth in playful affection and flopped on the grass next to him, content to watch the Foxes work for the rest of daylight.

***

The following day’s game had a much bigger, much louder crowd than usual. Wymack’s pep-talk was shorter, and the energy between the players was more nervous than usual. Kevin was especially quippy, and Neil especially chatty, and Nicky kept telling Rob things that felt important but she didn’t understand.

What she did understand, though, was the excitement, and so she added her own excitement to the mix, jumping around and rubbing against different Foxes’ legs. Andrew was the only one that seemed unfazed, and he crouched down to pet her as per usual, to which she rapidly wagged her tail. As her purr filled the air around them, the players halted, all looking toward her. Andrew paid them no mind, but she titled her head at them. She would’ve grown quiet, but the purr of the pet was stronger than her.

Half the players’ faces split into grins, and the nervous energy morphed into a confident one as they raised their exy sticks and cheered. Something was announced, and they left the locker-room to head out on the court. Andrew picked her up and took her along.

When they stepped out into sunlight, Rob was almost overwhelmed by the scenery; the noise, the colours, the people — half of which wore orange, the other half red and yellow. The enemy was stationed on the far end of the court, and Rob’s ears perked as she fell into a cautious state. Andrew pet her gently to calm her down, but her heartbeat refused to slow. It wasn’t a dangerous alertness, though; it was the kind that made her giddy. She whined when Andrew put her down on the bench, but knew the court was a battlefield on which she wasn’t allowed — at least, not until the enemy’s been demolished.

From her position beside Wymack, she was in clear view of the Foxes banner, attached to the plexiglass — the very same fabric from yesterday, all done and finished with large, bold orange letters and the handprints of every Fox decorating the edges. Small but numerous were her own paw prints, trailing a path throughout the fabric. At the end of the words an orange outline of a large paw was painted, and at the center of it was another of her authentic paw prints, perfectly aligned. Rob lied down on the bench, head on her paws, and gazed at the banner. It flattered with the wind.

Her eyes trailed down to the court as her Foxes started their game, and she focused on them until they’ve won. When the buzzer sounded and Wymack leaped to his feet with a cheer, Rob leaped right along with him; noticing, he picked her up and raised her in the air, and the team, facing her, all raised their exy sticks with ecstatic cheers. Rob barked in excitement, eyes wide and bright; and when she was let down, she sprinted to the court and across the field, right to the company of her family.

Amid the cheers, her eyes caught the banner — still flattering in beat with the wind, her paws and the Foxes’ handprints rippling with it. And she was happy. Because amongst the many misfortunes scattered along her path, and the places she’s been that have chewed her and spit her back out, she was startled to realise that this wasn’t going anywhere. Amongst all the people that have left her to fend for herself, uncaring or even wishing for her death, she suddenly found herself here: on a battlefield won, having left a mark of her own.

She’s found a place to remember her. 

She’s found herself a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap!
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading! I got weirdly attached to Rob, so it took me a second to figure out how I want to finish this. But I think I did a good job. What do you think? I would be happy to hear your thoughts about this :') 
> 
> Writing this has been a lot of fun, which is why you can expect more aftg fics from me in the near-ish future. Again, thank you to anyone who read this, gave it kudos and commented. I hope you enjoyed.


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